Kind: captions
Language: en
all right hello hello everyone welcome
to the gut check series today is day one
we are so happy to have you here
and i am so excited to be joined by a
dear friend of mine and one of the true
experts when it comes to this topic gut
health
dr william lee let me before we jump in
before i introduce you to dr lee
let me just first introduce myself for
those of you who don't know me my name
is dr will bolsowitz i am a practicing
gastroenterologist in charleston south
carolina
and i'm also an author i wrote a book
called fiber fueled which you can see
right here
and that was a new york times
bestselling book i'm very proud of that
book
and i also happen to be a member of the
scientific advisory board for zoe which
is a personalized nutrition company
that we are going to be talking about
during the next half hour or so when we
dig into some of the things with gut
health because what's exciting
is that a lot of what we are learning
right now
about the connections between us
our unique biology
our food
our gut microbiome and our health
what we're learning
is from zoe
so with that in mind i first want to
introduce you all to my dear friends a
living legend
i mean i would honestly say a rock star
i don't know if he would allow me to say
that but his name is dr william lee
and dr lee is a world-renowned physician
he is considered literally the world's
expert on the topic of angiogenesis
but he is also considered to be an
extreme content expert when it comes to
the microbiome the gut microbiome he's a
research scientist he's been published
in the most prestigious medical journals
he just had a recent publication in the
new england journal of medicine
he too is also an author he wrote a book
eat to beat disease
if you haven't purchased purchased this
book you're going to want to grab it
this is a phenomenal book it was a new
york times best-selling book people
absolutely love it
and
dr lee is also the founder of the
angiogenesis foundation the ceo and
their medical director
so with that in mind dr lee it is a
pleasure to welcome you and uh i'm
excited to talk to you
well uh dr ball swiss uh and since we're
both wills you could be dr b and i could
be dr lee uh but uh
uh we've known each other and it is so
great to see you and to do something
together with you i think that's gonna
help uh be of interest and really
hopefully be helpful to anybody who's
watching this so i'm glad we could
actually kick off uh this uh program uh
together
100 i'm excited and you know it's kind
of cool because you and i we know each
other very well we talk on the phone all
the time perhaps we'll get into that a
little bit as we uh as we talk more
about the microbiome but today
the gut check series we're kicking this
off and we're here to talk about the gut
microbiome so let's let's just go ahead
and let's take it from the top dr lee if
you could
kind of walk us through what is the gut
microbiome
well you know most people have heard
this term
gut health or microbiome or gut
microbiome and i want to sort of maybe
start from the beginning which is you
know when you and i
were in medical school
we were taught that bacteria are bad and
yet we also knew that in the gut there
were some good bacteria because if we
gave antibiotics and we wiped out the
good bacteria
our patients really had a big problem
because they wound up sometimes in the
icu
with you know gut problems that we'd
have to fix with guess what more
antibiotics right so um
i i think you and i came out of this era
where we believed fundamentally that
bacteria needed to be squashed and
that's all changed now i mean i think
that textbook has literally been thrown
out the window and we now know that
bacteria are mostly good there are some
bad guys but mostly good guys and a lot
of those good guys live in our gut and
that's what we call the gut microbiome
so term microbiome you know uh it sounds
fancy but it really refers to an
ecosystem i
i sort of tell people um the gut
microbiome was like the great barrier
reef
you know off the coast of australia it's
this amazing
system of of different uh
animals flora and fauna that all live
together and at its best it's a really
healthy living system that takes care of
itself and it takes care of the planet
and that's basically um what's actually
happening inside our gut now a lot of
it's in our colon but it's not just in
our colon our gut really starts from our
mouth from our lips all the way down to
the anus and there's bacteria all along
that space and not just in the gut or
microbiome to be
uh accurate also is on the skin also is
in our nasal passages and our ears
vaginal openings urethra i mean there's
anywhere that bacteria can get in
they're setting up shop there but when
we talk about the gut microbiome because
it is so important
we feed them with the food that we eat
and how we feed them
how we take care of our microbiome uh
and can make the difference between
health and disease uh frankly life and
death
100 and you know all food that goes in
our mouth ultimately passes through this
area and comes into contact with these
38 or 39 trillion microbes
which is an overwhelming number i mean
it's really hard to put into some sort
of conceptual framework what 38 or 39
trillion is but what it would be is if
you were to take all the stars in the
sky
take them all and just bunch them up
and put them inside of you you would
need a hundred galaxies full of stars to
equal the number of microbes that live
inside of you literally right now every
single one of you who are here with us
today this is what you have living
inside you and it is a life force
and it contributes to the greater good
the whole person
and when we talk about you know you you
mentioned for example dr lee the great
barrier reef
and some people when we think of
ecosystems they might also insert the
amazon rainforest
and you hear these things that are
happening to the amazon rainforest
recently in the last few years the
amazon is burning
and they say that's mother earth's lungs
right and the reason why is because it's
not just the bugs and the snakes and the
animals down on the ground
they form the ecosystem that ecosystem
contributes to a greater whole which is
the ecosystem
the amazon rainforest and then the
amazon rainforest is a large contributor
to the health of the entire global
planet
any thoughts or any anything you want to
add to that yeah no i mean i think that
these are just really powerful examples
of what's happening inside us and why we
need to take care of you know these
critters uh you know i um uh
you know and so one of the questions is
how do we even get our bacteria right i
mean it actually starts when we're still
growing up or we're still developing in
our mom's womb it turns out that
healthy bacteria that live in mom
actually somehow make their way
through the uterus and actually start to
populate
the developing
fetus even before we get to nine months
i mean there's healthy bacteria
setting up shop getting ready to do
their job and when we're born uh you
know every aspect of the birth process
helps uh the baby encounter bacteria
that you know kind of crawls onto it
kind of like when you get to the beach
and you want to set up your your blanket
and your umbrella that's basically
what's happening when you're coming out
of the womb you take your you crawl up
for that skin
skin contact you get your first the baby
gets their first
mouthful of milk you know the lips are
wrapped around the nipple the skin
microbiome
gets right into the mouth and there's
mom's bacteria something really amazing
that people don't realize is that around
nine months or so um when the mom's body
this ecosystem knows that you know the
baby's about to be born gut bacteria
actually um uh text message cells um uh
called neutrophils and they uh and these
cells swing by and pick them up in the
colon and and give them a ride to the
mom's breast where they get dropped off
like an uber and they wait there for
that first suckle from the baby and then
once a baby suckles on mom's good gut
bacteria gets down into the baby's gut
so this is you know
not a made-up process this is really who
we are and um
uh 39 trillion bacteria
you know the galaxies um we only have
maybe 39 or 40 trillion cells so we are
50 50 human versus bacteria there's a
term that i write about in my book
youtube disease
that's called holobiont and a holobiont
is an organism that's actually made up
of
different organisms and that's what we
are we're not really even truly human
anymore we're actually walking around as
holy bion so you know
so you know if half of what we said is
sort of mind-blowing to people watching
this
what's even more profound is really the
spec these bacteria
not don't just help us
digest you know they contribute to our
digestion and our food
and how we actually extract nutrients
but they communicate with our brain they
communicate with our uh our other
endocrine organs they communicate with
uh our skin for wound healing and our
even our hair they can control our
our mood and so
literally
our gut bacteria are
pay us back for the room and board that
we give them
so we have to take good care of them
yeah there are so many examples where
nature has demonstrated to us how
critically important these bacteria
actually are to us and you started to
touch on some of this that there's this
connection that exists between
mom
the microbes and the baby that actually
is critically important to the
development of children and so you you
mentioned the the changes that occur and
how that can connect to breast milk
i'll unpack that just a little bit more
if it's okay
during the third trimester a woman's
vaginal flora because the vagina has its
own microbiome
a woman's vaginal flora actually starts
to shift as she gets late into the third
trimester and starts to more closely
resemble the gut microbiome that you
will find inside her or the microbiome
that you will find inside her gut so
it's less like a vaginal microbiome and
more like a gut microbiome in
preparation for the baby to then pass
through the birth canal
and get exposed to the greatest
probiotic of their lifetime which is
passing through the birth canal
and then another one that i find to be
extremely fascinating
and honestly just mind-blowing
is that if you were to examine breast
milk the reason that there's such a
tremendous difference between mom's
breast milk and what you can get in a
formula and feed to a baby the reason
why
if you formula feed a baby they are more
likely to be obese to have allergic
illnesses autoimmune issues diabetes
the reason why this happens
is because mom's breast milk
is not just macronutrients mom's breast
milk contains something called human
milk oligosaccharides
which
in a very interesting spin
have zero nutritional benefit to the
child in terms of direct nutritional
benefit
but there are over 200 varieties of
these human milky lego saccharides in
mom's breast milk that are exclusively
there
to feed the new developing gut
microbiome
and so it's just so interesting to think
about this and you started to touch on
some of the the key points of where
there's connections
how our microbes are connected to
digestion
access to nutrients
our metabolism
our immune system
our mood our cognition the way that we
think
even the expression of our genetics you
mentioned that you know if you were to
look at the number of cells
we are less than 50 human when it comes
to the total number of our cells and if
you were to look at our genetic code
we are less than one percent human
when it comes to our genetic code
anything that you want to add to that
yeah well i mean you know i i think that
the message that we're
uh both
uh
we've understood that's kind of changed
certainly in my mind
and i'll be interested in hearing you
know what were the big surprises for you
as you've went through your
uh career in education and kind of uh
you know we are all um
doing we're practicing medicine and
helping people in an era where the very
nature of understanding what makes us
human and what keeps us healthy is that
changing so this is kind of a we're just
about to get into this golden age of the
microbiome
i'll tell you
quickly something that surprised me
i did some research looking at one
bacteria and the key thing about the
microbiome is not one bacteria but it's
about the balance and the ecosystem so
it's not about one fish in the in the
great barrier reef or one
bug in the amazon rainforest it's about
how they actually cooperate and
collaborate together you want more you
want the species to be in
healthy coexistence but i but you know
as a researcher one of the things that i
do i you start by research by having
hypotheses and studying things one thing
at a time so we were looking at
lactobacillus which is one kind of
grouping of of uh healthy bacteria for
the most part and we
found quite amazingly
that uh the connections between the gut
and the skin uh were profound so we
actually did a study for wound healing
so when you cut yourself you got blood
vessels that got to grow and then the
scab forms and the blood vessels
actually nourish the tissue underneath
and uh and your cells heal that your
body heals itself and the scab falls off
and you've got normal skin and you know
we used to think that
well you know the if you're a healthy
person your
body is healing as fast as it can heal
anyway that's the what all the surgeons
used to believe
we found that if you actually um
uh
[Music]
restore
lactobacillus one bacteria to contribute
to the healthier gut flora that you can
actually double the rate
of normal wound healing so you can be
like the wolverine in the x-men you can
actually speed up a wound to heal faster
than you could possibly believe and so
you know we're we're even our human
tissues are not functioning at full
capacity
our bacterial cells can actually help
push things along to me that was a
mind-blowing thing the other thing that
i learned the same bacteria could
influence
skin and hair luster and kind of uh
shine as well the sheen and coloration
of ours in so you know when they say his
beauty is more than skin deep well the
skin deep beauty actually is much much
deeper because it actually starts in our
gut as well so those are a couple of
things that really surprised me uh over
the years and why it's so important i
pay attention to my microbiome what
about you what are some of the surprises
you've encountered
you know i'm blown away all the time i'm
blown away by the science science that
we've been reading about i mean honestly
things that we learned 10 years ago
that for example that you could
transplant the
gut microbiome microbes
from a human
into a mouse model
and that mouse will take on
the um
the weight profile
of the human that sent their microbiome
over so in other words if you take the
microbiome of an obese person you put it
into a mouse
that mouse will become obese
if you take the microbiome of a skinny
human and put it into a mouse that mess
will become skinny even if you feed them
the same number of calories
right and so i that to me was
mind-blowing but i think that the other
thing too is
looking at bio-individuality
and
the
role that the microbiome plays
where it becomes clear
very clear
that we are not merely the manifestation
of the genetic code that we receive from
our parents
and that is
empowering it is empowering to know that
i am not born with some genetic code
that basically predetermines what my
life and my health is going to be
we actually have the power and so when
when uh you look at some of the research
that has emerged actually in the last
a little over a year from from zoe from
the researchers from the soi scientific
advisory board
they showed looking at a thousand
individuals
that if you know their microbiome
you know you can predict more powerfully
what their blood
glucose levels what their blood lipid
levels are going to be what their uh
what their c peptide or insulin levels
are going to be
you can predict that in a very powerful
way using information like a person's
gut microbiome and the beauty of that is
that the gut microbiome is adaptable
with that in mind the gut microbiome is
adaptable and it is adaptable to many
different things
i would argue that food is
perhaps the most important thing in
terms of adapting and changing our
microbiome you wrote a book eat to be
disease about the connection between
food and our microbes perhaps you would
like to talk to us about some of the
foods that you think are beneficial
yeah well i mean you know here's here's
the
simple way of thinking about it when we
have
dinner a plate of food in front of us
and we eat it uh some of that food is is
nourishing us our human selves you know
the things that the thing that you'd
expect the macronutrients and the
micronutrients but our human bodies
don't absorb everything and again you
know back in the stone age when you get
when you and i were studying medicine uh
and you know sort of in a traditional
way we were told that anything that the
human body doesn't absorb just just
flies out of our gut and we flush it
down the toilet but actually it's so
it's it has like the story has so
evolved whatever our human body doesn't
absorb actually goes down to feed the
gut bacteria and those and and things
that the gut bacteria love to
feed on to digest prebiotic foods these
are bioactives found in plant-based
foods primarily um
fiber
uh and and they you know and they
literally have um they sit down and have
their dinner uh pretty much after we
have ours
like and and the key thing is that when
we feed our gut bacteria healthy foods
they're well nourished and they can do
their job and one of the things that
they do is they they create their own
metabolites like these things called
short chain fatty acids that then get
into our bloodstream and they do all
these other incredible things like in
our brain and our skin and our kidney
and our blood you know they though they
they literally help to
uh they send signals out that help our
body function better but i want to also
point out one thing because we know we
you and i always talk about healthy
eating but i think equally important to
know is that you know when it comes to
food and health it's not just about the
food and it's about how our body
responds to what we put inside it and
our bacteria is part of that response so
if you actually put something bad in
your body or harmful you know maybe the
human body
you know pretty resilient you know a
little bit of this or a little bit of
that then we're not gonna it's not gonna
we're not gonna go belly up but our gut
bacteria might go belly up and that's
really what causes dysbiosis we start
feeding you know
too much sugar
artificial preservatives artificial
sweeteners um all kinds of chemicals
that we get kind of just chuck into our
body uh
and until recently we thought you know
maybe it's okay but now we know it's not
okay not just for the human side of
things that's where a lot of biohackers
talk about all the things but i think
from the bacteria side if we start to
poison our bacteria it allows more uh
it's a good guy bacteria it's gonna
tend to wane and it allows the bad
actors to kind of take over so i always
talk it's like a neighborhood where the
good neighbors uh actually are not doing
so well they lose their jobs they gotta
leave that move out of the neighborhood
and more more of the the criminal
element comes in and and when you've got
enough of those people around it becomes
chaos and that chaotic bacteria i mean
this is something that i think you know
you you that's like right in your
wheelhouse
a lot of times that's what brings people
to the gastroenterologist isn't it yeah
that is that's and that's that's how i
spend my time is you know talking to
people walking in with complex digestive
issues
eurobow syndrome acid reflux crohn's
disease ulcerative colitis celiac
disease i could go down the line i could
keep going
every single one of these conditions has
been associated with damage to the gut
microbiome and the way that you're
describing which is dysbiosis by the way
i love the analogy of you know a a
healthy
community a healthy community versus a
community that is in duress and being
overrun with crime because that kind of
does paint the picture so that people
can imagine what is actually happening
inside your body as this is going on
and you know dr lee these people who
come to see me
and many times they will ask you know
hey doc should i have a
test to determine whether or not i have
dysbiosis
and i look at these people and they have
your own bowel syndrome or you know
whatever digestive issue but then they
also have migraine headaches
anxiety
they have
you know many times they're overweight
you know they may have autoimmune issues
or allergic type issues
and what you see is you see this pattern
you see this pattern where there is this
common thread that exists
where at the root of their problem
is digestive health the gut microbiome
and disruption of the gut microbiome
dysbiosis leads to downstream effects
that will not only affect your digestion
but will also affect your immune system
your metabolism your hormones your mood
your focus and you just it has
systemic
far-reaching effects
so
and these are the people that wind up
coming to you because they're not
feeling well and they haven't been able
to solve their problems and and what you
know you just said is so powerful
because
it means that you know i mean how many
how many times have we heard from
someone who says you know like i got
this problem i know it's real
my life is ruined because of it i i
can't i can't do the things i want to do
and yet the doctor doesn't have any
answer they can't find out what's going
on and what we're talking about is a new
uh realization that this is a path we've
got to explore and it may not be the
only problem but it is certainly part of
the problem and this idea of connecting
the gut to the mind parkinson's
alzheimer's
huntington's disease
depression schizophrenia connected to
the microbiome i mean you know like if
you have multiple personalities i mean
think about how many personalities are
in our gut that you know like it's it's
just a it's it can explode your mind to
think about how powerful this so you
know but but people listening and
watching this probably want to get some
practical ideas and you know i was
thinking you know uh
it would be good for you and i to just
share with people some practical things
they can actually do so are there you
know as a gastroenterologist i mean
what are like the top three or five
things like what are some useful things
that everybody should be doing to help
them keep their gut microbiome healthy
well you know i i think where i would
start so i like this i like this let's
let's how about we'll go uh i'll share a
couple you share a couple and then we
can go from there so
um
i think it's important for people to
understand that your dietary choices as
we've been alluding to
are directly connected to your gut
microbes
and this was shown in a very compelling
way
in a paper that was that was published
by sarah barry who by the way
if you're tuning into the gut check
series you will be meeting sarah barry
okay
and sarah berry published this paper in
nature medicine in january 2021
which showed convincingly
using the information from the zoe
dataset
dietary choices
determined gut microbes
gut microbes determine metabolism
determine results
right
so what sort of dietary pattern is the
optimal pattern for a healthy
gut microbiome
and from my perspective there is one
core principle that i am pounding the
drum on and i want everyone to know and
i don't care
what dietary pattern you follow
the assumption is that you eat at least
some plants at least some fruits
vegetables whole grains seeds nuts and
legumes
and i am imploring you today
to make diversity of plants a
foundational idea within your dietary
pattern so what i mean by that is don't
eat the same foods every single day
stop counting grams of fiber
start counting the varieties of plants
in your diet get as many different
fruits vegetables whole grain seeds nuts
and legumes as you can and yes i would
encourage you to begin getting most of
your calories from plants
but at the end of the day we want
variety
what would you add well
yeah i know i mean i i think that's
absolutely right and
um i think that that's a gift to be able
to actually
uh look at abundance as sort of our
you've just given permission for people
to go out and enjoy abundance not in
terms of the volume you eat more more
but more a different kind of abundance
which you can pick and choose um lots of
different kinds of things and obviously
leafy greens actually have a lot of
great fiber
find ways to actually
make uh the the um the fiber resonate it
doesn't you don't have to be a rabbit
and eat rabbit food all the time you
know sauteed olive oil actually has also
been shown to be beneficial for the gut
microbiome and so you want to swap out
things like butter or margarine or some
of these other things that the gut
microbiome might not like so much with
olive oil which actually they it loves
the bacteria loves that so but not too
much so again i would say
diversity
prepare your foods mix them together uh
bacteria i love that and by the way
another some amazing things that have
been found from a correlative
perspective is that many of the it's not
just fiber
uh i encourage people to
look at the foods that they really enjoy
that are plant-based that are healthy
and you know then take that extra step
anybody can do this on the internet and
just to find out like that food that i
really like like for me i really love
mushrooms look up how much fiber's in
there okay and look at what kind of
fiber is in there learn something about
your food because the more we understand
what we're eating this is something that
i think people in europe and asia do a
really great job now they
care about their food they want to learn
more about their food they want to talk
about their food so this is actually not
uh
eating to live like sustenance but this
is living to eat
so that we understand what it is that
where the material we're actually
dealing with you know if you're in
finance and you're spending all your
time counting your shekels you know um i
mean like it's just something that you
get absorbed by and i think this is
something that is changing now we're
we're seeing more and more people
interested in making good choices so
what i would say is
look up how the foods that you love can
help your microbiome
i love that and you know one of the
things that you're alluding to right now
that i just i want to have you expand
even further on briefly
is
what i'm hearing from you
is that we have a relationship with our
food
this is this is not just being
mechanical about this this is not being
an engineer and writing down what you're
eating and meeting certain measures and
marks
you deserve
to enjoy what you eat
you deserve to love your food do you
want to talk to us a little bit about
love your food love your health what
does that mean
yeah well you know what i i did a gap
year before we went to medical school
and i
i moved over to the mediterranean i
lived in italy and then i moved over to
greece and i lived in greece and i
cooked i was i was very interested in uh
almost obsessed with kind of learning
how what food meant to the people who
live there where it comes from how does
it actually play a role in their life
and everybody
loved their food and they also cared a
lot about their health and there wasn't
this sort of like ah the stuff i love
isn't good for me so if i want to be
healthy i got to cut out all the stuff i
love no no i mean in these old cultures
traditional diets they actually said i
love to eat this and i'll eat it for the
whole life my whole life and it actually
makes me feel good as well
and there are these incredible culinary
traditions that kind of go along with it
and to your point about how everyone is
individualized sort of this bio uh
individualization
um well this is the this is the bedrock
of where of how we understand how to
take care of people now
there's no uh cookie cutter everybody's
the same uh
even in sort of the the medical field
where you write prescriptions we're
beginning to realize now we shouldn't be
writing the same prescriptions to
everybody all the time
we have to tailor it personalize it and
to some extent food as medicine is one
of the most uh bespoke ways to tailor
um
how to take care of your own body in the
ways you want so fruits and vegetables
plant-based foods luts and legumes
by the way nuts are one of the
easiest sources tree nuts of protein and
fiber and healthy fats that you can
actually have as a snack you don't have
to prepare it like most of the time you
can just you know go out to a costco and
buy a bunch of it and and have it around
those are um
great ways to actually individualize you
get to choose the power is in the hands
of the person who's going to be making
that food choice uh so i think that you
know like you should know yourself first
understand what you really enjoy
and of what the things you enjoy the
things that are actually healthy for you
that's the bulls eye and so if you can
start with eating the healthy foods that
you already love you're way ahead of the
game
yeah yeah i think you know one of the
one of the things that i think about as
an author um
is that you and i
here's your book eat to beat disease
this is a masterful book
and you and i we we paint a picture
in our books about what it is what is
the path forward
in terms of optimal human health
but at the end of the day
you and i would both agree
that on an individual basis
every single one of us when we read if
we're reading eat to beat disease or
reading fiber fueled
i expect every single person who reads
my book
to take these general rules
and apply them
to themselves
in a way that fits their unique needs
their unique biology and makes them feel
great
that's what i want for everyone who
reads my book that's what i want for
people who are listening to this
conversation
and
i think that you know one of the
challenges that exists is that our
current research techniques
are designed to give us the big picture
right we understand the general
principles
of biology and what is the optimal way
to eat
but it doesn't allow us to zoom in on
that individual person who is listening
to us here today and say hey for you
this is actually the best for you though
this is the exact way to go for you and
that's what i'm excited about with the
future of nutrition
which is coming from you know the work
that's being done with zoe where i'm on
the scientific advisory board
because for the first time we are
creating the tools and by the way this
is a communal this is a communal process
all right we are all contributing
to allowing this to happen
and by all of us chipping together being
a part of this citizen science project
we can start to understand and
disentangle the unique nature of every
single one of our unique biology to know
what are the best foods for each of us
on an individual basis what are your
thoughts as an author and as a scientist
with regard to all these types of ideas
yeah you know i mean this is what you're
talking about is so
so spot on in terms of of what's
exciting today
uh what's important today uh one of the
things i do by the way is i'm involved
with not only cancer research but i'm
involved with cancer patients and there
are some amazing breakthroughs for
cancer treatment but to speak to how
every individual is different
we all know somebody who you know could
be a friend or a family member or a
co-worker or a neighbor somebody had
cancer and didn't do very well no matter
what the treatments were
regardless of what medical center they
went to and then we also know other
people who might have had a really bad
cancer and somehow they
they bounced out of it they
they're just fine and you know the the
question that i always want to know is
like what makes the difference between
somebody who um did really well versus
somebody who who didn't do well and uh
my colleague dr laurent zipfelgel in
paris actually studied 200 patients who
are getting immune therapies that allow
the body to fight cancer by itself
and found that the difference between
people who responded to
their own immune system versus people
who didn't respond well and
got you know got sicker and a lot of
them died
responders versus non-responders came
down to their individual microbiome and
if they had the right kind of pattern of
the microbiome
they responded beautifully to this
treatment so it's not just
food
and general gut health
it's really food and the whole medical
premise all together and it's this is
probably not only true for cancer
treatments it's probably true for heart
treatment it's probably true 400
emotional psychic psychiatric
psychological treatments as well and so
i think this idea that we need to all
contribute to understanding
who we are
why we are and how we can be
that's really what zoe's trying to do
that's the work that you're doing on the
scientific advisory board that's why
we're having these conversations to
share with people
what's actually happening at the
forefront of medicine and for those of
us who are privileged enough to be
working in that space this is not
something you have to wait for
for another 10 years this is stuff
that's happening now
that that you can actually make
decisions on like right here right now
tonight your next meal you're the next
time you put something in your mouth
just think about like what it is that
you're doing for the inside of you and
then ask the question how can you find
out more and that's actually what this
program is all about i love that yeah
and that's it's so it's so well
represented and you know it's
one of the things that i love is that
this is a collective effort
right this is not scientists sitting up
on high in their ivory tower and saying
oh do this do that no no
this is us collectively as humans
we're banding together and there are
some scientists who are crunching the
numbers they're statisticians
and then there's those of us that are
contributing we're contributing to
making this possible
and so every person who can who
participates in zoe you are a
contributor to this science you are
empowering and enabling this and it's
going to help other people and it may
help you too
and that's that's a beautiful and
powerful thing before we go real quick i
want to tell a brief story since i have
you here this is the first time that
we've actually done an interview live
together
and um so i just want to share with
everyone
when my book fiber fueled made the new
york times it was a little over a year
ago it was in may of 2020
and i found out on wednesday night so
authors find out on wednesday night
whether or not they made the list
and the first person to call me
was
this man right here dr william lee
he was the first person to call me we
talked for two hours that night
and we spoke about what it means
to
be fortunate and blessed with the
opportunities that we are as authors
to have people to read our books and
care about what we say
and then to have the opportunity to
apply our talents
in the future
to wherever it is that we see an
opportunity to try to help and do good
at the end of the day he and i we're
both medical doctors we care about
helping people this is our life work
and um so one of the things that dr lee
said to me that night
when we are on the phone
was he said to me you need
now that you're a new york times
bestselling author
you need to find your north star
you need to decide where you want to go
with your career
and don't let anything distract you from
getting to the north star
and as i sat there and i thought about
what i wanted to do
i knew that there was a gap in the
knowledge on personalized nutrition
i knew that there was so much more that
we didn't know on how to apply these
nutrition concepts
to the individual and um
that ultimately led to where i am today
which is on the scientific advisory
board for zoe i'm here participating in
a part of it because i want to be a part
of it because this is my north star this
is what i'm trying to do and so so while
i have you here dr lee i just want to um
say thank you to you
for the way that you have supported me
in my career
for the phone call that you made that
night to me you changed my life and um i
just can't thank you enough i think that
you're a wonderful person and i'm
grateful for you in my life
well thank thanks so much uh
for for those kind words and
uh it is true that um
you know
we have uh
uh
um
sort of
uh bit the apple so to speak that says
that there's so much more that actually
can be done for people and when it comes
to nutrition when it comes to
personalized nutrition
there's such immediacy to this that's
what kind of
makes me excited when
i see
talented physicians
uh do so well
like you have not only with your career
and your book and um you know all the
other court you know the courses that
you're doing all the other activities
you're involved with um
it means that uh
you're you are helping things uh
become ignited and i think that's really
uh a powerful uh outcome so thank you
very much for
uh your kind word thank you for uh
participating in this uh program i think
that you know everything that you've
discussed uh
and we've been trying to communicate is
so important that's an important message
for people to hear
uh a hundred percent couldn't agree more
dr lee this was an amazing conversation
uh honestly we could talk for hours i
know we have we have and we can continue
to uh for the sake of everyone's time
we're gonna go ahead and we are wrapping
up today's session of the gut check
series thank you everyone for coming and
joining us
we will be back again tomorrow i hope
that you've enjoyed this i hope you
found this informative and empowering
we'll be back tomorrow at the exact same
time but in the meantime if you if you
would like to learn more about your
biology about which foods are the right
foods for you about how to optimize your
gut health for optimal metabolism for
optimal health throughout your body head
to
joinzoey.com and use the discount code
gut check series
for 10 off
so we'll see you guys tomorrow same time
enjoy the rest your day thanks again for
hanging out with us