Challenging the Dietary Guidelines on Dairy
Nurturing Your Gut Microbial Health During the Lockdown
Does the Gut Microbiome Play a Role in the Individual Response to the COVID-19 Virus?
The Health Benefits of Green Tea
Do the Benefits of Organic Food Justify the Increased Cost?
Plant-Based Milk Alternatives – Which One to Choose?
Health Benefits of Red Meat: How Much Can We Trust Food Recommendations in Medical Literature?
The Indisputable Benefits of Largely Plant-based Diets
Microbes Adapt to Their New Environment Along with Their Immigrant Hosts
Can the Iceman Tell Us Something About the Healthiest Diet?
Lessons Learned from the Gut Microbiome of Hibernating Brown Bears
Pain Summit
HEALING CHRONIC PAIN SUMMIT “There is, most likely, at the current stage of our knowledge, a programming phase early on that makes the brain more vulnerable later to develop a chronic pain syndrome.” Join thousands who are registering to watch this online summit with 47 leading experts. In this summit, we acknowledge and recognize that […]
Important Implications for Development of Future Therapeutic Strategies Using Engraftment of Microbial Species Into Our Gut Microbiome
An exclusive metabolic niche enables strain engraftment in the gut microbiota Elizabeth Stanley Shepherd, William C. DeLoache , Kali M. Pruss , Weston R. Whitaker & Justin L. Sonnenburg After programming of the general compositional architecture of the gut microbiota in early life, the established microbial ecosystem remains fairly stable and resilient to perturbations throughout […]
Fascinating study reporting results obtained from nearly 12,000 people around the world as part of the American Gut Project
‘Largest’ microbiome study weighs in on our gut health Fascinating study reporting results obtained from nearly 12,000 people around the world as part of the American Gut Project. Major findings of this landmark study are the fact that it is the diversity of plant based foods that a person consumes (and not just the fact […]
Indisputable Health Benefits of the Traditional Mediterranean Diet
IBS Patients Obtain Robust, Enduring Relief from Home-Based Treatment Program–And Physicians Agree
“This study clearly established the clinical value of a #MindBased intervention for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)… showing that this should be offered to patients not as a last resort but as a safe and effective first or second-line therapy.” – Dr. Emeran Mayer Landmark, NIH-funded multisite study finds IBS patients who learned to control severe […]
The Germs That Love Diet Soda
The “National Eating Disorder” Epidemic and What You Can Do About It
In this excellent summary by Mark Bittman and David L. Katz about what you need to know about healthy nutrition, the authors address some of the most commonly asked questions that I get from patients and audiences around the country. Some people may disagree with some of these recommendations, but overall, I cannot think of […]
Chronic Stress Is Bad for Your Gut Microbes
Psychosocial stress has long been known to affect the gut as well as its microbial residents. More than 10 years of research in rodents, monkeys, and human subjects have shown that even mild stress can transiently reduce the abundance of certain types of microbes, including the lactobacilli in the stool of the animals. In chronic […]
The Effect of Physical Exercise on Our Gut Microbiome
A large body of scientific evidence supports the fact that physical exercise is good for cardiovascular and brain health. In particular, a previous study from Ireland comparing professional rugby players and sedentary healthy control subjects suggested that exercise increases short chain fatty acid production by gut microbes and thereby improves your gut health.1 However, as […]
Putting Your Mind Back into Food
As health-conscious consumers, we are constantly concerned about finding the healthiest foods in the market. We perform calorie counts of our meals and worry that we may not get enough protein, vitamins, calcium or other minerals. Millions of people with a syndrome called non-celiac gluten sensitivity spend a lot of their attention and money on […]
Why the Mediterranean Diet Is Good for You
If you want to stay healthy, slim, maintain your cognitive function, and live longer, there is no question that sticking to a traditional Mediterranean-type diet is the best investment you ever make. As diet fads come and go (including high fat, paleo, vegan, and ketogenic diets) there is a consistent flow of studies that confirm […]
Do All Diseases Start in the Soil?
According to recent science summarized in a blog post by Anne Bikle and David Montgomery published in Nautilus and discussed more extensively in their book “The Hidden Half of Nature,“ the answer is a definitive yes. The authors describe not only the astonishing interconnectedness between what we feed our plants and how these plants feed […]
Caveats to the Ketogenic Diet
If you listen to the proponents of the ketogenic diet, everybody should be increasing their consumption of animal products, particularly red meat and animal fat, while restricting the intake of processed carbohydrates such as sugar. There is no question that the scientific literature supports the effectiveness of ketogenic diet in rapid weight loss and in […]
Has Gluten-Free Failed You? Here’s What To Do Next
I just posted a blog on Medium together with my friend and colleague Dr. Steven Tan. The last time we co authored a paper was in 2015 entitled Traditional Chinese medicine based subgrouping of irritable bowel syndrome patients. This time our joint article is related to food, more specifically about how to design a personalized […]
The Western Meditation – Is It A Mere Stress Reduction Technique?
If you have ever observed longtime meditators in a Buddhist monastery, or gone through rigorous meditation training yourself, you know that meditation is a serious business and has been for thousands of years. Dedicated meditators strive towards compassion, equanimity and enlightenment, and do not pursue their practice with the simple goal of stress reduction and […]
Finding Your Optimal Diet in a World of Food Sensitivities
The many iterations of food sensitivities in the “national eating disorder” community never cease to amaze me! While the topic of non celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) has occupied the headlines for several years now, and has resulted in millions of people demonizing gluten containing food, the latest research study from Norwegian investigators is challenging the […]
The Food Revolution
Amongst the many dramatic technology- driven changes such as self driving electric cars and artificial intelligence going on in the world we live in, the Food Revolution is happening almost unnoticed. While the majority of people living in the US and many parts of the world continue to stick to their traditional Western diet consisting […]
Sensory Deprivation for Relaxation
I am always amazed how things that first became popular in the 60’s and 70’s as counterculture or “new age” beliefs and practices like organic food, vegetarianism, sustainable agriculture, meditation, and even the use of psychedelic drugs like ketamine (now evaluated as a miracle drug for refractory depression) have returned, this time as mainstream businesses. […]
A Miracle Weight-Loss Molecule?
An interesting study describing the development and testing of a molecule first identified in obese laboratory animals and humans, which appears to play a role in modulating the brain-gut axis in a way to prevent further weight gain. The scientists at the pharmaceutical company Amgen modified the molecule so it stays in the circulation longer […]
Sex as a Biological Variable: NIH Workshop
The NIH held a workshop on the topic “Sex as a Biological Variable” recently. Women make up half of the world’s population, but the great majority of medical research studies have been performed in males. It has erroneously been assumed that the results and recommendations from these male only studies equally apply to women. In […]
Vegetarianism May Be Linked To Depression, Study Suggests
This large and well designed clinical study performed in men confirms results previously reported from surveys in women by showing that people who identify themselves as vegetarians or vegans are more likely to be depressed. Previous studies had shown that such an increased risk also applies to anxiety disorders. Like all published studies, the current […]
Is The Secret To A Healthier Microbiome Hidden In The Hadza Diet?
Even though they represent different races, live in very different parts of the world with different climates and plants, the few remaining hunter gatherer tribes in the world – including the Hazdas in Tanzania, the Yanomamis in Venezuela and the Asmat people in Irian Jaya – they have one important thing in common: their gut […]
The Human Microbiome: Emerging Themes at the Horizon of the 21st Century
There is an impressive assembly of the leading microbiome scientists attending the conference “The Human Microbiome: Emerging Themes at the Horizon of the 21st Century” which has been going on at the Natcher Conference Center on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus. The presentations about the latest analytical and computational techniques makes it clear […]
Detox: Does it Help Our Brain-Gut Health?
People love the concept of “detox” and a lot of different strategies such as juicing and fasting, and “cleansing” have been proposed to achieve this goal. Even though the concept goes back thousands of years, most are based on unsubstantiated pseudoscientific concepts that “cleansing” your digestive tract has health benefits over and beyond a general […]
American Psychiatric Association (APA) Meeting 2017
I was invited to speak at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) recently in a debate addressing the question: Can Gut Microbiota Affect Mental Illness? The event was organized by Erika Nurmi, MD from the Semel Institute at UCLA and had a prestigious panel of discussants including James McCracken, MD (UCLA), Chadi […]
Gut Microbiome Symposium in Brisbane
I just spoke at an international microbiome symposium sponsored by the Falk Foundation and organized by Dr. Gerald Holtmann in Brisbane, Australia. The conference highlighted the rapid progress that is being made in identifying the role of the gut microbes in a wide range of disease areas, including inflammatory bowel diseases, IBS, rheumatoid arthritis, pulmonary […]
Leading the Fight Against Excess Sugar Consumption
I was recently invited by Professor William McCarthy from the UCLA School of Public Health to participate in an Expert Roundtable on Added/Free Sugar at the Luskin Center at UCLA. The meeting was sponsored by the Kaiser Permanente Policy Institute in partnership with the American Heart Association and hosted by Drs. Sue Babey and William […]
The Brain-Gut-Microbiome’s Connection to IBD, Obesity and Anxiety/Depression
In the last 5 days I spoke at scientific meetings in NYC, New Orleans and UCLA on each of these topics. The growing interest in the topic of brain gut communication by specialists working in very different areas of research would not have been imaginable only a couple of years ago! Question 1: What do […]
Antibiotic Use and Inflammatory Bowel Disease
A couple of days ago I attended an interdisciplinary brainstorming workshop sponsored by the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation (CCFA) in New York City which began at the storied Harvard Club of New York and went on in a nearby hotel. Experts from widely different disciplines from environmental sciences, microbiology, neuroscience and gastroenterology pondered for 9 […]
16th World Congress on Pain in Yokohama
Who would have thought a few years ago, that our gut microbes may have an influence on the development of chronic pain? However, the exponential growth in interest of the scientific world in the gut microbiome in the last few years has made it possible to address this provocative question and provide intriguing data supporting […]
The Korean Diet
During my recent trip to Korea, I had a first hand opportunity to experience a food culture which to a large degree is based on fermented foods. While the controlled fermentation of food evolved thousands of years ago as a technique to preserve and store vegetables and fish to be enjoyed fresh months later, there […]
Nestlé Nutrition Institute Workshop 2016
I am attending the 88th Nestlé Nutrition Institute Workshop in Mexico “Intestinal Microbiome: Functional Aspects in Health and Disease” and gave a presentation yesterday on brain gut interactions and behavior. There is a growing consensus that the early life period is crucial for the programming of the gut microbiome. This starts during pregnancy with maternal […]
Gut Check
Jon Meachan’s article about Donald Trump in this week’s edition of TIME magazine, is entitled Gut Check – For Trump, intuition beats experience. No matter how much you believe that Mr. Trump lacks any intuitive or experiential qualification to become the next US President, the article raises an important point. Political and military leaders, investors, […]
3 Things Every Parent Should Know!
The first three years of your life are the most important time to shape the life long dialogue between the gut, its microbes and the brain; and the clock starts even before you are born! From the physical and psychological stress a mother experiences during pregnancy, to what she eats, to the way a newborn […]
Interview with Dr. David Perlmutter: Diet and The Mind-Gut Connection
Microbial Ecology
According to a recent article by Ed Yong in the Atlantic, the entire field of microbiome science has paradigm shifting implications: “If microbiome science tells us anything, it’s that everything is secretly ecology. The biology of oceans and bodies and soils is really about the connections and relationships between living things, many of which have […]
Launch of the National Microbiome Initiative and its Implications for All of Us
The launch of the National Microbiome Initiative (NCI) was announced on Friday, March 13 at the White House. Several members of the UCLA Microbiome Center attended the event which brought together scientist, industry representatives and funding agencies. The NMI has three major goals: To foster interdisciplinary research on fundamental questions about diverse microbiomes (including soil, […]