Inside Matters

Biome Bite 014 - Debunking 3 Microbiome Myths

In this Biome Bite, Dr James McIlroy 3 myths and misconceptions about the gut microbiome.
Timecodes:
00:00:00 Intro
00:00:56 Weight of the microbiome
00:04:39 We’re more microbial than human
00:07:00 Microbiota is inherited from our mothers
 What we're talking about today on this Biome Bite is microbiome myths and misconceptions. We're going to cover 3.
There's this lovely article written by Professor Alan Walker, who's been on the podcast, highly recommend you watch and listen to that episode, and Professor Leslie Hoyles and it's in Nature Microbiology, so really nice high-impact scientific journal, and they go through a lot of the things which you hear within this space, be it in social media, be it in when you're speaking to someone who's just generally taking an interest in the microbiome, even in scientific papers, this still comes up, even though it's been refuted and proven to be untrue.
Arming Our Listeners With Facts About the Microbiome
So we're going to arm you as the listeners to Inside Matters with this knowledge so that you can truly start to become an expert and you've got your finger on the pulse of the field. And if you hear it, you go, I heard on inside matters. That's not true.  So the first one is the human microbiota weighs one to two kg.
You hear this a lot, several kilograms, almost like a weight plate at the gym. Wow, that's a lot.  Now although it's mentioned many times in literature, although you hear people talking about it, people say it weighs as much as a grapefruit.  And what the professors do in their papers, they explain that. The majority of the microorganisms reside within the colon,  i. e. the large intestine. And if you've listened to the previous Biome Bites episode, we walk through the digestive tract, the gut, what the gut is, what the digestive system is, how it all links together and how the microbiota fits into all of that. 
And in that episode, if you've not listened to it, what we say is that the vast majority of the microbiota, i.e. the microorganisms, particularly bacteria that reside within the body live in the large intestine.  And what's interesting is when you take a stool sample, or we can just use the other word, a poo the microorganisms typically account for roughly 50% of the weight of the faecal solid mass. 
This has been published, but also we've done a lot of stool collection and stool analysis in EnteroBiotix. In fact, we may collect more stool regularly and analyze stool in a more in-depth manner than anyone else in the world at the moment.  So we know a fair bit about it.
How Heavy is the Microbiome?
The size, shape, mass, and composition of stool can vary within an individual and also differ among various people. According to the paper, an average human stool typically weighs less than 200 grams when wet. However, in our experience, we have observed significant variations, which makes it a likely accurate statement.And when you're running a donor program like EnteroBiotix, you actually want to target people who donate larger amounts, but also who have a good ratio of microorganisms versus solids. And that's driven by fibre and fibre content.  Now, they say a really interesting paper in patients or people, unfortunately, who have had a sudden death.
The human microbiota, particularly the gut microbiota, plays a crucial role in maintaining our health. The weight of these microorganisms has been the subject of many studies, and recent findings suggest that the total weight is likely to be less than previously thought. In sudden death cases, post-mortem assessments of the total colonic contents have shown a range between 83 to 421 grams. This data challenges earlier estimates that placed the weight of the human microbiota in the range of one to two kilograms.
Researchers concluded that barring unusual instances of severe constipation, where an individual's colon is compacted with a large amount of faecal matter, the total weight of the gut microbiota is more likely to be under 500 grams. This new understanding shifts the narrative about the microbiota's mass and provides a more accurate picture of human physiology. It also emphasizes the importance of considering bodily variations and conditions when making generalizations about biological metrics.
These findings have significant implications for medical science and nutrition. A more precise understanding of the microbiota's weight can impact how we approach digestive health, the development of probiotics, and the treatment of gastrointestinal diseases. It underscores the importance of continual research and reassessment in the scientific field to ensure our knowledge remains as accurate and useful as possible.
The human microbiota, particularly the gut microbiota, plays a crucial role in maintaining our health. The weight of these microorganisms has been the subject of many studies, and recent findings suggest that the total weight is likely to be less than previously thought. In sudden death cases, post-mortem assessments of the total colonic contents have shown a range between 83 to 421 grams. This data challenges earlier estimates that placed the weight of the human microbiota in the range of one to two kilograms.
Researchers concluded that barring unusual instances of severe constipation, where an individual's colon is compacted with a large amount of faecal matter, the total weight of the gut microbiota is more likely to be under 500 grams. This new understanding shifts the narrative about the microbiota's mass and provides a more accurate picture of human physiology. It also emphasizes the importance of considering bodily variations and conditions when making generalizations about biological metrics.
These findings have significant implications for medical science and nutrition. A more precise understanding of the microbiota's weight can impact how we approach digestive health, the development of probiotics, and the treatment of gastrointestinal diseases. It underscores the importance of continual research and reassessment in the scientific field to ensure our knowledge remains as accurate and useful as possible.
And that's based on the average weight of human stool. And the study shows that the average wasn't backed up by lots of wet research and scientific logs and books, it's just the back of an envelope.  And since then there's been a lot more detailed analysis. and the true figure is probably more like one-to-one. Now that's still really impressive. That is a lot of microorganisms.  And the interesting thing is, just to bring it back to the last point about the number of microorganisms in a stool sample,  whether you're more microbial than human or more human than microbial based on the number of microbial cells on the inside of you versus human cells depends on perhaps when you've been to the toilet. 
Because if 50% of your stool which is a sum product of the colonic contents is a microorganism then if you've just been to the loo you may be more human than microbial and vice versa. So a bit of trivia there for you.  The other point to note which is highlighted in the paper is that it probably varies as well depending on where in the world you are.
So if you're in a hyper-clean environment, you have less than someone who's living in an environment where there's no soap and no antibiotics like somebody in the jungle somewhere. So pretty interesting stuff.  Now, the last one then,  is that the microbiota is inherited from the mother at birth.  And you hear this one a lot and it usually ties into how someone's been born.
So people say things like if you've been born by C-section, you're more likely to have autism or you're more likely to have metabolic syndrome. You're more likely to be obese, all of which are potentially true based on population-based studies, i.e. they take large cohorts of people who have something, in some cases autism, metabolic syndrome, or obesity, and they ask the question, how were you born?
And if more people cluster towards a particular birth method than when you take a healthy control group,  then it's possible that this particular factor contributes to the development of the disease or the syndrome or whatever we're talking about here. 
The more this is replicated in different parts, the larger the sample size, and the more robust it is. And there have been very large population studies where we've looked at the association between how you've been born and the development of obesity, autism, and certain things like that. And there are indeed correlations, for sure. But it doesn't necessarily mean causation,  it's still interesting though. Bringing it back to this particular point in terms of the microbiota being inherited from the mother.  The other point to this is that if you're being born through the normal route, then the first microorganisms that you come into contact with, the normal being through the vagina are the microorganisms of your mother and the vaginal tract in a natural way. 
The alternative approach is if you're born through a C-section, then the first microorganisms you come into contact with.  are the microorganisms from the skin and microorganisms from the surgical room. Some of these are multi-drug resistant and they're not ones you would typically expect to find within the intestinal tract. 
How Unique is Your Microbiome?
That said, it's not the case that they stay there forever, guaranteed. And the most important years of life are the early years of life, particularly when you've weaned off breast milk or however you've been fed at the time to more solid foods.  And there's a dramatic increase in the diversity of the microbiota over the first couple of years.
And I could point you in the direction of a nice book called Dark Matter by someone called Dr James Kinross, whom I hope to have on the podcast, where he talks about just how important those formative years are that said, every adult ends up with a very unique microbiota composition.
It's as unique as a fingerprint. How do we know that? We can assess the microbiome in identical twins who have the same genotype,  who've been in the same house, sometimes most of their life, or certainly up until the point of testing, and they have distinct microbiota. So it's the sum of everything you've eaten and everything you've done up until the point of testing. 
And there can be dramatic changes, but as you get older, it starts to get a bit more stable.  So although Microbiota assembly from birth is not yet fully understood. We do think that the adult communities are predominantly shaped by the early years of lives and factors such as diet, antibiotic therapy, and host genetics, rather than just being purely inherited from the mother. 
So there are three microbiome myths and misconceptions debunked. I hope you've enjoyed it. Thank you so much for supporting the podcast, and for taking an interest in your gut health and your microbiome. I'm open to feedback and we do the five-star reviews. Please keep them coming because it lifts and elevates the podcast across all the channels.

Biome Bites 013 - Unlocking the Secrets of Gut Health

In this episode of Biome Bites, we go back to basics to cover the overall importance of gut health while addressing some common misconceptions and myths.
00:00:00 Intro
00:00:44 Importance of gut microbiome
00:02:22 Misinformation addressed
00:04:21 Gut health is more than the stomach
00:08:12 Different bacteria in the gut
00:10:31 Functions of the gut
00:13:08 Microbial metabolism
00:14:04 Traditional wisdom
 

Episode 037 - Momo Vuyisich - the secret world of the gut microbiome

The following is a conversation with Dr. Momo Vuyisich, co-founder and chief scientific officer at Viome. Viome is a life sciences company that analyses the activities in your oral microbiome, gut microbiome, and blood using RNA, essentially measuring gene expression.
This gives the company the ability to be able to assess what the microbiome in these various areas of the body is doing and gives insights into potentially how that links to diseases, which gives you personalised recommendations for how to improve your microbiomes through your environment. So basically your diet.
Their vision is that in the future, through the analysis of all of this data, they're able to make predictive bets on who is at higher risk of developing particular diseases and issues due to the composition and function of the microbiome.
Momo is an amazing communicator. You'll learn about. the microbiome and its importance in gut health. You'll hear about his own story in terms of how he managed to cure chronic disease through his own diet. You'll hear about his vision for Viome, how the pharma industry works in his opinion, and how things are going to improve over the coming decades.
Fascinating discussion, I enjoyed it. I wanted to thank Momo for coming on as such a busy person. Now, with the introduction done, I wanted to say thank you to all of our listeners for supporting the podcast. Some of you are listening to every single episode and sending feedback about the episode, what you liked, what you didn't like, and what you learned.
We've been going now for a year and a half. And we're loving every single moment and the feedback from listeners makes it all worthwhile. So if you're enjoying it and you haven't yet liked and subscribed, please hover your finger over that button and give us a five-star review.
00:00:00 Intro
00:05:27 Momo’s vision
00:08:08 Is science improving human health?
00:15:58 Applying science to big health problems
00:18:11 Human genome
00:27:46 Vaccines with probiotics?
00:36:27 Is the microbiome undervalued?
00:45:59 Next gen RNA sequencing
00:52:37 Building Viome
00:58:34 Preventing all disease through diet
01:00:41 Sialic acids
01:11:16 Food industry
01:14:24 Importance of sleep

The Role of Diet in Promoting a Beneficial Microbiome - Prof Jack Gilbert

The following is a conversation with Professor Jack Gilbert, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, along with his many other very interesting titles and job roles. This includes the co-founder of the Earth Microbiome Project, the American Gut Project, and also featured in the very popular recent Netflix documentary, Hack Your Health.
He is a master of the microbiome. We covered all aspects of the microbiome, the ocean, the soil, how it could impact climate change, and gut health, responses to drugs.
Takeaways
The microbiome has a significant impact on various aspects of our health, including gut health, responses to drugs, and even climate change.
A diverse and healthy diet, with a focus on consuming a variety of plants, is crucial for promoting a beneficial microbiome.
Understanding the dynamic nature of the microbiome and its mechanisms is essential for developing effective therapies.
Changing behaviours and promoting adherence to therapies and dietary recommendations can be challenging, but finding solutions that align with our culture can help overcome these barriers. Probiotics and the microbiome have the potential to improve human health and address environmental challenges.
Quantifying the microbiome is crucial for understanding its role in health and disease.
Urgent action is needed to address climate change, and microbiology can play a role in improving soil health and mitigating its effects.
The gut-brain axis is an important area of research, and microbiome-based therapies show promise for mental health.
00:00 Introduction to Professor Jack Gilbert and his work
02:20 The impact of the microbiome on climate change
04:16 The role of diet in promoting a beneficial microbiome
07:03 Precision ecology: Understanding the dynamic nature of the microbiome
09:23 Challenges and solutions in promoting behaviour change for microbiome health
17:52 The importance of time in studying the microbiome
30:08 Parallels and commonalities between different microbiomes
39:19 The future of microbiome research and therapies
44:59 Probiotic Building Materials
48:33 Revolutionizing Microbiome Sample Collection
56:55 Microbiome-Based Therapies for IVF Success
01:09:29 Addressing Climate Change through Microbiology
01:19:21 Urgent Action and Application of Microbial Therapies
01:23:01 The Gut-Brain Axis and Mental Health

Eating Real Food for Optimal Health - Mads Friis

Learn more about this episode's guest and the topics discussed - https://insidematters.health/
In this conversation, Dr James McIlroy and Mads Friis discuss the fundamentals of health and wellness. They cover topics such as mindset, sleep, diet, alcohol, and the importance of social relationships.
Mads emphasizes the importance of eating real food, including fruits, vegetables, and berries. He also highlights the significance of getting enough protein and staying hydrated. While alcohol can be enjoyed in moderation, it is not recommended for optimal sleep quality.
The conversation emphasizes the need to focus on the fundamentals of health before diving into more advanced biohacking techniques. In this conversation, Mads discusses the importance of sleep and the limitations of sleep trackers. He emphasizes the need for balance in biohacking and the importance of focusing on the fundamentals of health. He also criticizes the food industry and the misinformation surrounding nutrition.
Mads shares his insights on movement, light exposure, and the benefits of cold water immersion, sauna, and breathwork. He concludes by discussing his book on habits and his future plans in the biohacking space.
Takeaways
Focus on the fundamentals of health, including mindset, sleep, diet, exercise, social relationships, and hydration.
Eat real food that your grand grandma would recognise as food.
Ensure you are getting enough protein to support your body's needs.
Moderate alcohol consumption and be mindful of its impact on sleep quality.
Prioritize social connections and relationships for overall well-being.
Start with the basics before diving into advanced biohacking techniques. Sleep trackers may not provide accurate information about sleep stages, and focusing too much on sleep data can lead to unnecessary stress.
Biohacking should be approached with balance and not become an obsession. It's important to focus on the fundamentals of health, such as movement, light exposure, and proper nutrition.
The food industry plays a significant role in the current health crisis, and there is a need for more education and awareness about healthy eating.
Cold water immersion, sauna, and breathwork can have various health benefits, but it's important to find the right balance and not overdo it.
Mads has written a book on habits and plans to explore other topics in the future, such as sleep, biohacking, and longevity
 
Timecodes:
Introduction to Mads Friis and his journey
02:29 The State of Health and Wellness
04:28 The Fundamentals of Health: Mindset, Sleep, Diet, Movement, Social Relationships
07:50 Mads Friis' Journey and Entrepreneurship
09:47 The Importance of Getting the Fundamentals Right
14:16 Cutting-Edge Biohacking and Individual Differences
20:05 The Role of Diet: Eating Real Food and Protein Intake
25:24 The Controversy of Alcohol and the Importance of Hydration
32:05 The Impact of Alcohol on Sleep Quality
36:29 Mindset and Enjoyment of Healthy Choices
39:45 The Limitations of Sleep Trackers
42:04 The Importance of Balance in Biohacking
44:15 The Fundamentals of Health
46:26 Exploring Cold Water Immersion, Sauna, and Breathwork
48:01 The Role of Supplements and the Food Industry
53:42 The Benefits of Movement and Light Exposure
55:53 Finding the Right Balance in Biohacking
58:19 The Influence of the Food Industry
01:08:38 Exploring Hyperbaric Oxygen Chambers and Other Biohacks
01:15:42 Mads's Book on Habits and Future Plans
You must not rely on the information in this video as an alternative to medical advice from your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. If you have any specific questions about any medical matter you should consult your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. If you think you may be suffering from any medical condition you should seek immediate medical attention. You should never delay seeking medical advice, disregard medical advice, or discontinue medical treatment because of the information in this video.

Episode 034 - Dr Jenna Macciochi - understanding our immune system

The following is a conversation with Dr. Jenna Macciochi, an immunologist, twice-published author, TEDx speaker, public speaker, and all-around immune system expert. 
It was an absolute pleasure and honour to have her in the studio today to talk about all things immune system. gut health, the microbiome, and even things like how do we improve the health of society more generally. Jenna truly is an expert. She's amazing at communicating and breaking down complicated concepts so that they're easy to understand for the listener.
I learned an absolute ton over the course of this conversation and I'm sure you will too. If you have an interest in the immune system, why you catch a cold, what you can do to maybe prevent you from getting a cold, how to keep your immune system in top shape, how it changes as you age, and just more generally how to live a longer, healthier, happier life, you're going to get something out of today's conversation.
 
Timecodes:
 
00:00:00 Intro
00:01:55 Interest in the immune system
00:05:04 Science of staying well
00:09:08 Avoiding burn out
00:16:45 Immune system components
00:20:41 “I never get sick”
00:24:50 Not catching a cold
00:35:15 What’s important for immune system
00:43:36 Immune system age
00:49:05 Taking supplements
00:51:03 How important is sleep?
01:00:18 Strong immune system in children
01:03:09 Stress and the immune system
01:05:01 Social media misconceptions
01:14:21 Importance of making food
01:18:07 Link between microbiome and immune health
01:22:28 Helping children eat healthily

Exploring the Link Between the Microbiome and Cancer - Dr Saman Maleki

The following is a conversation with Dr Saman Maleki, associate professor at Western University with a special focus on oncology, immuno oncology, microbiology, and everything to do with the immune system and the microbiome.
Dr Maleki is a pioneer and a world leader in the field of sensitising tumours to immunotherapy through modulating the microbiome.
During this conversation, we talked about the state of the art associated with the microbiome and cancer. So if you're interested in how cancer impacts the microbiome and how the microbiome impacts cancer you should listen to this episode. We delved into what the latest evidence is for the use of FMT in making a particular type of cancer therapy called immunotherapy better for treating particular cancers.
We talked about the journey from doing the first trials to the area where they are now, which is raising funds to do much larger trials that should definitively prove that changing the microbiome can massively improve response rates to cancer therapies.
Even as someone who's got their finger on the pulse of this field, I left the conversation enthusiastic and excited about the potential in the future for developing efficient microbiome treatments to tackle cancer.
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:38 First interest in the microbiome
00:05:46 FMT for C-Diff patients
00:09:11 Using the immune system to treat cancer
00:19:03 Microbiome research for oncology
00:23:46 Journey from first study
00:27:30 Stimulating immune system with FMT
00:39:09 Chemotherapy, pancreatic cancer and the microbiome
00:48:29 Novel cell therapy and chemotherapy
00:49:02 Future of immunotherapy
00:52:32 Immune therapy response in cancer treatment
00:55:41 Antibiotics and cancer treatment

Episode 032 - Sonny Drinkwater co-founder of WellEasy

The following is a conversation with Sonny Drinkwater, an entrepreneur and co-founder of WellEasy, which is a membership-based online platform that aims to make healthy living accessible and affordable for everybody.
Sonny and the team at WellEasy have been on a mission over the last couple of years, organically growing their business from the ground up.
Starting in a garage to being an online platform that now has over 10, 000 members. They've also started to manufacture and sell some of their own products. Sonny explained the journey throughout our conversation today, all the various ups and downs associated with building a business, and also gave us some real insights into his vision, which is to improve the health of the nation through his business.
I loved speaking to Sonny as a mission-led founder. I learned a lot about supermarkets in the UK, the food industry as a whole, and his approach to healthy living as a founder.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 Introduction
00:02:55 Eating real vs processed foods
00:03:16 Starting WellEasy
00:07:49 Poor food choices in the UK
00:09:49 Food product testing
00:12:39 Defining ultra-processed foods
00:15:39 Changing how we look at food
00:17:30 Balancing food, life and relationships
00:21:28 Are some supermarkets better than others?
00:23:37 Managing life as an entrepreneur
00:27:00 Biohacking
00:31:22 Supply chain issues
00:33:15 Eating healthily at work
00:35:10 More about starting WellEasy
00:38:14 WellEasy’s membership scheme
00:44:28 Challenges of eating healthily
00:56:09 “Healthy” snacks for kids
00:59:03 Political involvement in healthy eating
01:01:28 Vision for WellEasy
01:03:09 Prebiotic fibre

Biome Bites Ep012 - Plans for the Podcast in 2024

In this Biome Bite, Dr James McIlroy chats about the progress of the Inside Matters Podcast.
Hey guys, it's James here for another episode of Biome Bites. In these episodes, it's just me and you, the listener. So today we're going to be celebrating the fact that we've achieved some important milestones on the podcast and wanted to give a flavour of what's coming next and what we've learned so far.
On the journey through inside matters, so a couple of really key metrics that I'm excited about. One is that we surpassed 10, 000 downloads a couple of weeks ago. We've also dug into the analytics associated with where people are based, where they're tuning in from and general engagement on an episode-to-episode basis.
So I thought it'd be quite interesting to share that with the listener base. There are a couple of trends that are quite humbling and get me quite excited and motivated to continue doing what I'm doing here. with the podcast. And we set out with the vision of trying to create the best microbiome content on the planet.
As a microbiome and gut health fanatic myself, and as someone who loves long-form podcast content, I spend five, sometimes 10 hours a week plus listening to long-form content. I was frustrated that I couldn't get any gut health microbiome content in that format. After probably around six months of searching and thinking, we decided that we were just going to start one ourselves.
And I guess that's the entrepreneur in me. I see an opportunity and if I'm excited about it, just go for it and think glass half full. And if the glass isn't half full, then fill it up and have a kind of impossible, as-nothing type of mindset. And the name Inside Matters came to me early in the morning, one weekend when I was brainstorming with my friend and colleague, Ian Whalley, who helps with all the website and the graphics design.
We essentially have been fulfilling the vision since we launched the first podcast episode. And on a month-to-month basis, there's been a steady cadence of increasing engagement.
And we're seeing what I think are really quite remarkable metrics for a podcast that's really got quite a niche offering in terms of what we're talking about. Now whilst the microbiome is all-encompassing and there are microbiomes in the soil, there are microbiomes in your ear, there's a microbiome in your nose, there's a microbiome in your gut, there's a microbiome on your desk, and you could go as far as saying the whole world is a microbiome.
of sorts. It is still a topic that doesn't get as mainstream attention as something like AI. And our listening is not as easy listening for the most part as some other podcasts that are really popular. Our aim is not to try and capture the attention of as many listeners as possible because if we wanted to do that we would change our content slightly and we would talk about subjects that are really accessible and of interest to the whole population like weight loss and muscle gain and tell stories because stories get a lot of engagement.
We want to stay true to our vision at Inside Matters and that is to really create an absolute best-in-class podcast. So for anybody who's interested in microbiome, whether they want to scratch the surface. and get a bit of microbiome gut health 101. Although I want to go super deep and listen to world experts talking to me at the deepest kind of level, there should be content on our podcast platform website and newsletter for you.
It takes a lot of time, graft and grind and determination to create something from nothing and consistency is key. So we will continue to record even if life gets really busy and work gets really busy. We do have great guests lined up now for the next three months or so, and we're doing recordings in London.
We're doing recordings in San Diego. We're doing some remote recordings as well. And of course, we're doing recordings in our HQ here in Scotland. And we're diversifying a little bit. So we're speaking to entrepreneurs, speaking to academics, we're speaking to doctors, we're speaking to executives we'll speak to dietitians, nutritionists, and the aim is to try and get as broad a picture as possible of how the field is progressing and different views, opinions, and expertise, frankly.
And I have learned so much from going a little bit outside my comfort zone. So if you've listened to the episode with Aaron The amazing nutritionist who's the founder of a business called Nutrition Rewired. I learned so much in that episode because I was engaging with her as an expert nutritionist and that's not typically someone I would speak to on a day-to-day basis.
I speak to academics, I speak to clinicians, speak to potential investors, pharmaceutical partners and so on. So that was a really eye-opening episode for me. The aim is to get that breadth of experience and expertise on the podcast. We'll continue to ask and discuss a broad range of topics, try and answer the hard questions, but also give easily accessible information for you as a listener.
The Biome Bites do get a good engagement, but what we've found is that the podcasts with guests get the best engagement in terms of numbers and downloads and stuff. So we'll continue to try and get people onto the podcast as, as best as we possibly can. We're seeing hundreds and hundreds of downloads of every episode.
Some of the more popular ones get 700-plus downloads, which are unique. So that's 700 people downloading and listening to the episode. 
We don't really have a strategy to try and blow the podcast up and become viral sensations and to make me and the podcast famous. In fact, that's not our desire at all. We don't want to do that. We just want to be known for the best content relating to gut health and microbiome on the planet.
And that is our niche. We will stick to our niche and we're going to try and get better and better as each episode comes out. For those of you who have supported the podcast so far and been with us since day one, thank you so much. We can see and tell that there's a consistency in the listener base, which means that you must be enjoying it because you're spending a couple of hours once every two weeks, sometimes more listening to episodes.
We know that some people have listened to every single episode as well. So there's quite a loyal and very engaged fan base, which is quite humbling for me and very exciting. It means that a lot of people have learned a lot about the microbiome over the course of this journey. And I also know that some people have had positive health benefits.
Now, of course, the podcast is not medical advice. It can't be and never will be. But some people have taken actionable steps themselves to try and improve their diet and improve some of the symptomatology that they've been having. So that's great. Now, if you've got any suggestions for what you want to hear, or what you'd discussed, just send them in.
We've got a broad range of topics coming up. We're talking about the microbiome and the immune system. We have the founder of an awesome company who has made healthy food more accessible coming onto the podcast in a few weeks. We have how the microbiome influences responses to cancer treatment, a world expert coming on talking about their pioneering work in FMT.
And we've got environmental microbiology. And other people who are involved in microbiome testing coming on. So real breadth of expertise and experience hopefully produce awesome content for you, the listener. Now, for those of you who haven't yet, I would very kindly ask that you like, subscribe and give us a five-star review on the platforms that do help push us up the algorithm.
It allows us to connect with people who've liked similar podcasts, which means they're probably interested in their health and gut health more generally. So that is very much appreciated. We can also see just another fact that people are listening from all over the world. It's not confined to the UK, US, or Europe.
It genuinely is an international listener base, which excites me, too, because it means that there is information getting out there around the world. And everybody, no matter where they are in the world, can take control of their health through improving their body health. diet and prioritizing their gut microbiome.
So I'll leave it there for this episode, an important milestone for us celebration of sorts, but I just want to emphasize that it's just the start of this journey and we're motivated to continue producing great content and to keep this going and to grow the podcast into the absolute best in class platform for microbiome and gut health information.
Thanks to those who've written in and also those who've approached me at different events. It has happened. Some people I've never met before have come up saying they're enjoying the content and that really makes it all worthwhile. Now the next podcast will be a solo episode again announcing some very exciting news at EnteroBiotix.

Episode 031 - Diets, Fibre, Supplements and the Microbiome With Dr Petra Louis

The following is a conversation with Dr. Petra Louis, Senior Research Fellow at the Rowett Institute for Nutrition and Health at the University of Aberdeen.
We entertained various subjects in a fun, but also quite serious manner. We got into some nitty gritty fun topics with regards to diets, supplements, fibre, and all the things that we've talked about before in the podcast, but going into quite some significant detail.