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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]