Super Gut: The Bacteria-Microbiome Connection You Need To Know About – With Dr. William Davis

Dr. Mindy
Okay, well, we’re gonna jump right in. And for starters, let me just welcome you to the podcast, I, I really have been such a fan of your work, you have put out books that have changed the way people think which I as an author, I feel like is so important. So not only am I welcome you, but I just a huge thank you for the work you’re doing. So happy to have this conversation with you.

Dr. William Davis
That’s the thing. So,

Dr. Mindy
you know, I Yeah, and I know, you know, you, when you’re putting a lot of content out there and you’re on a mission, sometimes you you lose sight of the impact you’re making. Maybe not, maybe that’s not happening to you. But you’re when you put Wheat Belly out into the world, I was already gluten free. And I had used a gluten free diet to really heal myself from Epstein Barr Virus. And when you I was I was recommending gluten free diets to people. And everybody thought I was crazy until your book came out. So I want to start by saying thank you, I hope you know that that book transformed the way people looked at gluten. Do you look at it that way?

Dr. William Davis
I think so, you know, we still have lots of work you and me to do to educate people what that means and why? Because as you know, prevailing opinions are completely opposite. You know, you must eat healthy whole grains, every meal, every snack, it’s so we’ve had it, we’ve made a dent in it. But there’s still tons of people who are skeptical think it’s nuts, don’t believe it, or have some other reason for not doing it. And yet, as you and I know it is the key. It’s the first step, a big first step in regaining health.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, yeah. And thank you for saying that, because we are going to go into your new book, super guide, and talk about fermented foods. But would you say before we launch into that the most important thing for gut health is to pull these offensive foods out like gluten? Yeah, was it because you can eat all the you could eat all the L Rudra. Yogurt you want. But if you’re still toxifying yourself with gluten, you’re not going to make much progress. Is that? Is that a good way to look at it?

Dr. William Davis
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy
Okay, awesome. The second thing I have to tell you, is that one of my favorite books of all health books of all times is undoctored. Oh, I love I love that book. I know. And let me tell you why. Because I use it to empower patients and people to really stand up to their doctors, because what I gathered from that book is you really made it clear that somebody who might have a thyroid problem, they may know and they’ve researched and Googled the heck out of it. They may know more about that thyroid problem walking into their doctor’s office and their doctor may actually know, do you feel like that still is true and exists?

Dr. William Davis
I think it’s becoming more and more true every day, as I don’t know why. But people are educating the CIO being informed, collaborating, conversing about these things, while my colleagues continue to bury their heads in the sand. And then what kills me is how they can often deliver misinformation with absolute authority. And then belittle you Yeah. Did you consult Dr. Google again? You know, so yeah, I don’t think it’s going to change in the foreseeable future, probably generations. As the current crop knocks pass away, you know, replaced by I hope, we’re open minded people who embrace information. But yeah, it’s not gotten a whole lot better. And in fact, the the Big Pharma is out of control. You know, that? Yeah. doctored was the book that earned me a blacklisting from all media. major media. Oh, really?

Dr. Mindy
Oh, really? Yeah. Wow.

Dr. William Davis
I thought it was me at first, but it’s crazy. It’s all of us. Now. It’s you, me anybody with any kind of an agenda or a book about health or nutrition. So you know, you and I used to be able to watch like, you know, CBS This Morning, or one of these other shows and you’d see a book author unhealth once a week or so some regularity, or an in depth exposome of some issue in health care. Zero now, nobody is talking about health, nutrition. In fact, I had a publisher say to me, you know, if we can’t make money publishing books on health, maybe we won’t publish books on health. Isn’t that?

Dr. Mindy
That’s crazy. That’s crazy. Yeah. Which which I’ve thought about this a lot. Because, you know, in my younger years, I was very focused on how can we overturn big food? How can we overturn Big Pharma and I agree with you that we’ve now entered a time where those industries are so profit driven, they’re so integrated into the political system. There’s no way we’re going to unter Unturned that so the only thing we can do is empower the Individual? Yep. Don’t you think?

Dr. William Davis
I couldn’t agree more? Absolutely. We got to get into the back door.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah. And so those of you that are listening as we go through gut health, as well as what I love, that Dr. Davis is putting out there right now is some really good food based ideas on what we can do to change our microbiome. You know, we have to take our own power back, because it’s not going to happen. The days where we would walk into our doctor’s office and expect to get all the proper answers is no longer amongst something we’re living in. Did would you agree? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So So let’s dive into super gut. Why did you write this book? Let’s start with that, you know, I always am curious, from an author perspective, what motivated you to write the book? Well, I

Dr. William Davis
saw the wonderful results of people engaged in what I call the Wheat Belly lifestyle that is eliminating all wheat grains and sugars, and addressing common nutrient deficiencies, not because of the diet, but because of the modern habits. So magnesium, for instance, because, by necessity, we have to filter our water of sewage and other things. And so water filtration removes all magnesium. So we all start with severe magnesium depletion. Iodine, typically, in the Midwest, what used to be called the goiter belt for lack of iodine. So we get iodine because people are cutting back on salt, they’re not getting their iodine from iodized salt anymore. omega three fatty acids because nobody wants to eat brain anymore. That’s the primary source. In addition to fish, that’s mercury, shellfish that has cadmium. So we’re stuck with this Ultra Refined product called official capsules. And then vitamin D, because we live indoors. So that collection of things the diet, those four nutrients that by the way, when put together synergize to reverse or minimize insulin resistance and inflammatory phenomena. So it really worked. But I saw people do things like this, oh, my, my, I’ve lost 73 pounds, my waist, it’s eight inches smaller, I don’t have hypertension anymore. My Type Two Diabetes is gone. But I’m still intolerant to nightshades. Or, or to have been causing food containing or FODMAPs, or fructose or some intolerance, or they had some residual problem. Like, my rheumatoid arthritis is 70% better. I’m awfully biologic, it saved me several $1,000 a month and co pays. I’m off the prednisone, but I’m still having to take the products now. And then for occasional flares. Why is that? And so I saw some residual problems. And I went, why. And by the way, this was in spite of the basic program having a multi species high potency probiotic, and prebiotic fibers. So even though people make those minimal efforts for their microbiome, so I wouldn’t know if the microbiome if I dug further will be find answers. And lo and behold, yeah, there’s a ton of answers. And there’s a ton of new insights coming out in the microbiome now that I cringe to think what we didn’t know, just a few years ago now, as right and cover all the incredible things going on the microbiome.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, you know, I get questions a lot about like, you know, what’s the best best foods for the microbiome? How do you help SIBO these things, kind of things that we’re going to talk about. But what one of the things that I’ve thought about deeply? Is the food allergies, you talk to you speak of those, like how, how many food allergies we have now, if we stop and think about it, like I didn’t, there was I don’t know any kids at my elementary school that had a peanut allergy. i We didn’t talk about gluten allergies, we didn’t talk about all the bazillion allergies we have now do you feel like that’s because of what you just said where our foods are not giving us the same nutrients and that we’ve got so many toxins in our water, so many antibiotics that people are taking what is causing all those allergies.

Dr. William Davis
So it’s from a disruption of the composition of the gastrointestinal microbiome, you know, all the things you and I and your audience have been exposed to like common antibiotics, amoxicillin, azithromycin, et cetera, wipe out literally hundreds of different species in the in the gastrointestinal tract in the colon. Well, once you wipe out the good guys, some of the fecal organisms start to proliferate E. coli super bacteria Klebsiella. They proliferate. The odd thing is they also and this surprise me, I was really taken by surprise when I start to think about CBOs as you know, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, for fecal organisms proliferate in the code and then ascend up the 24 feet of small bowel and fecal microbes in the small bowel are extremely inflammatory. And when they die, they some of their breakdown products enter the bloodstream as you know, process called endotoxemia. Right. And that’s part of the whole process that leads to food intolerances. So the vast Nadeau But the vast majority of food intolerances are due to this process is multi step process. SIBO fecal organisms endotoxemia. And the small bowel is especially susceptible this because it only has a single layer of mucus barrier, it’s not suited to have fecal organisms, while the colon has a thick two layer mucus barrier, because that’s where all these people microbes are supposed to be. So one other name for SIBO is focalization. Is the proliferation, micro, small bowel? And, you know, what convinced me just how widespread SIBO was, was the availability of this device, the air device? So yes, yeah. So as you know, you blow into it, it’s a real time sensor for hydrogen gas, you know, unlike the stuff that some people do in their clinics or labs, where you have to capture breath, or hydrogen in a two, imperfect process. Igen gas is a smallest molecule there is you gotta catch it really fast. And even then the gas escapes. So conventional testing for SIBO is flawed. And it tends to underestimate severity. So I think I think this air device is an improvement over because it’s a real time, blow directly. You put your mouth on you blow directly into it. And what surprised me though, was when I started talking about this, and 1000s of people started testing themselves was that it was the exceptions who tested negative. Now we could question the validity of the test, except that what I saw happen was people would test positive. By the way, the instructions that come with the device are not right. I did call the inventor, Dr. Short. He’s a scientist. He’s an engineer in Dublin, Ireland. And I said, Angus, I know you invented this for people with IBS, your bowel syndrome. On a low FODMAP diet, I said, but that’s not really what this is. I’m telling the inventor what he invented. I said, Yeah, that’s funny. It’s really a mapping device. You can use it to map and we’re microbes are use time. And you can tell where they are. So now he knows they’re trying to change the the labeling and instructions, but because he has some regulatory hurdles to get over. But that is how you use it, you use it, you consume some that bacteria metabolize, we use insulin, because it’s brought to life by multiple species of SIBO. And then you how fast you turned positive, zero to 10. Let’s say you started at 1.2. If it jumps to nine, that’s positive, a jump of four would be positive yet. So Right. So I hadn’t been doing this, I was shocked. Now, even better, it would take some steps to eradicate their SIBO. And they would test negative. And they would say things like, I finally broke my weight loss plateau, or my rotator arthritis is now gone. Or my hemoglobin ANC that dropped from 12.7%. Terrible to 6.1%. Much better, but still terrible. is now 4.8. Right? I saw all those residual problems go away.

Dr. Mindy
So is this a test that that is accessible to everybody? Is it an easy test to do?

Dr. William Davis
It is easy, it’s easy to use. So the instructions on the actual use of the device are okay with the instructions that come with it. But the interpretation how to use the timing factor is in my super guide book and perhaps in future when Angus short catches up, put it in the device itself right now, I have full instructions. So the key here is you consume something that bacteria metabolize. So in the lab, they use lactulose, usually a non digestible sugar, we use insulin insulin has, in other words, what have you, you choose a sugar or carbohydrate that only some microbes consume, but not the ones you have to test negative. So I picked the prebiotic fiber or carbohydrate that has the widest species can metabolize, you can metabolize this thing. So we chose insulin. So typically two types of annual in like in your cup of your coffee, a cup of coffee, something so tested baseline, consume your inland then test every 30 to 45 minutes. If you test positive rise of four units, within the first 90 minutes, you’ve got SIBO after 90 minutes, up to 180 minutes, three hours. It’s not quite clear because that could be distal ileum SIBO or it could be just normal colonic fermentation. So that’s where some judgment is required. So if if somebody says, you know, I tested I went positive at 110 minutes or whatever, is that positive? Well, typically it’s not regardless positive but what does the person says but you know, I have I’ve had diarrhea unexplained for years, and I had panic attacks, or I have rosacea or restless leg syndrome, or poly Maya Hi, I’m sorry, or five blind from viaja. In other words, conditions really highly associated with SIBO. Even with negative tests, I would say you’ve got SIBO. So there’s some judgment also involved.

Dr. Mindy
Is there a way for symptom wise for the for our audience might not know what SIBO is, but might be suffering from the symptoms of SIBO? How would how would we even start that conversation for somebody to understand if they had it.

Dr. William Davis
So there are what I call telltale signs, like fat malabsorption, if you see fat droplets in the toilet, or fat staining where the water meets the porcelain, or you have food intolerances, or conditions virtually synonymous with SIBO. So irritable bowel syndrome is is almost synonymous with SIBO, as is Fibromyalgia Restless Leg Syndrome. All neurodegenerative and autoimmune conditions, highly associate with SIBO, fatty liver, very highly associated obesity and type two diabetes, at least 50% of all people have SIBO. The curious thing though, is if we look back at all the studies that have been done, for instance, if we take several 100 People with irritable bowel, and ask how many tests positive for SIBO, those studies vary anywhere from 12 to 84%. But typically about 40% would test positive. But if you look at those studies, and look at how many people among the healthy controls, also test positive, it’s anywhere from a few percent to 44%. Words, normal ain’t normal anymore. So even healthy can Yes.

Dr. Mindy
Oh my gosh, I would say in the in my clinical work, I feel like everybody’s got some version of SIBO. And I would even throw into that anxiety, a lot of mood disorders are associated with SIBO. Are you are you seeing that as well?

Dr. William Davis
Yeah, good point. Anxiety, depression, panic attacks. Yeah, very high proportion. There’s an interesting series of studies. Some done in Germany, asking this question, how come some people don’t respond to antidepressants and depressants are stupid. But what the question is, yes, they are. Why do some people don’t respond at all? Well, it’s been determined that people who don’t respond to antidepressants have higher measures of inflammation, higher C reactive protein, higher il six, il one beta, etc. And, of course, Big Pharma steps in and says let’s give them expensive biologics for $10,000 a month to address the inflammation course. That’s ridiculous. So this German group asked this question. They said, What happens if we inject that endotoxin from from the SIBO organisms? Let’s take a little bit of that lipo polysaccharide, endotoxin miniscule amounts and inject them into non depressed people, which is really daring. Because if you miscalculate a little bit, you kill the person. So I don’t have they got this through their review board, but they did. So they injected this entity into the bloodstream of these non depressed people. And they became clinically depressed within three hours, and they performed MRIs. And that showed all the hallmarks of depression. In other words, LPs endotoxin, from SIBO, now has been conclusively shown to be a major contributor or cause for depression. Now, what proportion of depression? No one knows no one’s done that study. But it’s probably a lot. And of course, that won’t respond. There’s no stupid drugged increased serotonin.

Dr. Mindy
Right. Well, did you see the the meta analysis that came out in molecular psychiatry this this summer, it basically looked at several different studies on SSRIs and said that depression is no longer a singular thing. They do not believe that it’s a serotonin reduction because they have plenty of people who have low serotonin are happy, other people that go on antidepressants to raise their serotonin and they’re unhappy. So I think that whole world of antidepressants hopefully is being blown apart. Hopefully, so and I know a lot of people will leave, they help, but a lot of times they help temporarily, don’t you don’t you see that? If at

Dr. William Davis
all? Yes, exactly. They are a miserable class of drugs, famous for their ineffectiveness? No question at all. Yeah, no, I find Africa illustration of the power in a negative way of the power of the microbiome in addressing emotions is when you try to eradicate the microbe you get this die off reaction, which as you know, is can be profound depression, nightmares, yes. Panic attacks, anxiety, irrational behavior. So I mean, it’s but it’s a vivid illustration of the effect that microbes can have their breakdown process can have on brain on the brain and emotions.

Dr. Mindy
So what do we do if we if we think we have SIBO? What’s our first step? Let’s just say we’re listening to this, we resonate with all those symptoms, or we do your air device test, which I can’t wait to go research. And we get this clear idea that we have SIBO what’s our first step to fixing that?

Dr. William Davis
What I’ve been doing is so I asked a bunch of questions. What if I just took a commercial off the shelf probiotic that is a haphazard collection of microbes, no rhyme or reason, there’s not a reason why they combine specific microbes. Will my SIBO go away? No. Ready can reduce the symptoms sometimes, like some less diarrhea, perhaps less cramps and bloating, but doesn’t really eradicate the SIBO in most cases. So I asked these questions. What if we chose species that colonize the upper GI tract that’s recibo occurs? And what if we chose these that produce bacteriocins These are natural antibiotics effective against the species of SIBO. So I picked three, I picked Lactobacillus gasseri, the BNR 17, strain, upper GI colonization, up to seven bacteriocins. So it’s back curious and powerhouse. I chose Lactobacillus reuteri the DSM 17938. And I’m sorry about these, you know, the strain designations are nuts, and the a PDA 6475 strain. And I also upper GI colonizer, produce up to four bacteriocin So powerful by the way, my microbiologist friends say, you know, we use rotary to clean our fermentation vats. I didn’t believe it at first, but they do. It’s how effective an anticoagulant is. And then I throw in bacillus coagulants, the GBI 36, or eight, six strain. Now, these are all commercially available. Despite the wacky strain designations, we ferment them. But we don’t, it looks and smells like your yogurt. It’s not yogurt. So when we buy yogurt at the store, it’s been fermented for about four to six hours, we ferment for 36 hours. And the reason for that is like, for instance, doubles every three hours. Of course, microbes don’t have sex, there’s no mommy and daddy microbes, they just double. So literally doubles every three hours. At 100 degrees Fahrenheit, well, in four to six hours, you’ve got nothing. So we do 12 doublings on flow cytometry on these yogurts, and we’re getting something like 250 to 300 billion counts per half cup serving. And so far, now, this is anecdotal. But 40 People have done this for four weeks, little longer than antibiotics. And then tested negative after testing positive at baseline. So so far, now we’ll do a formal clinical trial, probably in collaboration with Dr. Angus short in Dublin. But we’ll do a formal clinical trial future to prove but so do you know if that solution I’m proposing is a total colectomy? Or explore dry rot to me? Well, we better be damn certain what we’re doing. But what if this is kind of like a yogurt? Sounds a yogurt.

Dr. Mindy
I was just gonna say it’s so unsexy. But it’s amazing, because you can do it at home. Right?

Dr. William Davis
Yeah. And you know, I kind of regret calling it SIBO yogurt, because it makes it seem like it’s just for SIBO. It’s actually those, certainly the gastro and reuteri are keystone species. That is there a very important species that by the way, we have almost all lost. So they’re extremely good anti microbials, those two species, but they’re also very susceptible to common antibiotics. So, you know, if we were to test the squirrels, and the rabbits and the other creatures out, they all have, right. If we were to test indigenous populations, like the people lived in the jungles of New Guinea, or jungles of South America, like the Yanomami, or all those indigenous hunter gatherer public, they all have rotary and gas, right? We almost nonetheless have anymore. So Replacing them is extremely helpful. So I’m now drifting over time, the idea that, yes, use the CBOE yogurt, at first to normalize your SIBO and then continue to do it with some maybe every third day or something like that. Because I think those two microbes, the loss of them is probably a big part of the reason why there’s so much SIBO in this world, I think easily one in two people have have SIBO, I think because of the loss of these microbes.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, yeah. And I would agree i in what we’re seeing, it’s just the the microbiome is so decimated by the by big food and Big Pharma. I mean, it’s just totally and so all these strange things are appearing. And what I love about this yogurt is that it’s it’s anybody can do it. And we can’t we got to make health simple. So explain to me the difference you have an L Rudra. Yogurt and they have a SIBO yogurt is the SIBO yogurt, just an extension of L L Right? Because I saw a lot of great art. You had a great, like great community talking about your L router I yogurt about three years ago, two years ago, it was all over your website. So it how would you choose one or over the other.

Dr. William Davis
So the rotor i So the simple yogurt is just good for cleaning up your boss, because of those properties upper GI. In fact, here’s the production, the rotor, I specifically you can do it as part of the civil yogurt or you can do it separately. When you mono culture something by itself, you get bigger numbers. So in the SIBO yogurt, you probably get around 80 billion per species. But if you want a real wall up, you can just cultivate the Rotary. And that’s where you see things like so in addition to upper GI colonization and bacteriocin production, it also sends a signal via the vagus nerve to release the hormone oxytocin. And so people experience things like greater intensity of affection for other people. They become more generous. They the part I love is they’re more accepting of other people’s opinions. So you get along better with your coworkers. But there’s a bunch of physical effects that also occur that have only recently been recognized ladies love it. Because there’s an explosion dermal collagen, and the wrinkles throughout your body start to be reduced. Ladies say they stopped using moisturizing creams because there’s you’re so moist from the sebum production. They don’t need to use moisturizer anymore credit guys love it because there’s a restoration of youthful muscle and strength. A dramatic effect by the way. I love it because I’m a chronic insomniac. And now I sleep straight through full eight, nine hours every night vivid dreams. There’s an increased libido easy. Guys experience increase in testosterone by so if you’re an older guy like me, you can have a youthful level of testosterone restored. Ladies love it because it also recently dope and also reverses vaginal atrophy. That as you

Dr. Mindy
know a flicks mates is huge for men not menopausal women. That’s huge.

Dr. William Davis
This preservation, bone density, acceleration of heal in other words, so what foot my start thing was we accelerate healing, deeper sleep smoother skin, greater muscle increased libido, we’re turning the clock back 1020 years. And that’s what we’re seeing people who do this. So rotary is the first microbe I played with I just happen to stumble on this incredibly powerful microbe.

Dr. Mindy
Yes. And so just so I followed the L router I craze have on your on your website and people talking about it for a couple of years, just so we kind of filled the audience in what is this look like to make this yogurt? Because, again, if we go back to where we were in the beginning of this conversation, we’ve really over complicated health and what you’re doing is giving a very simple answer. But not everybody knows how to make yogurt. So is that can you walk us through like what this would look like to make this and how often we would want to eat it and when we want to eat it.

Dr. William Davis
So I’ll use rotary as the example because that’s kind of the prototype. Because you know, in addition to rotary right, you can ferment other microbes, you can ferment, let’s say bacillus coagulants, that also reduces arthritis pain, and accelerates recovery from heavy exercise, or by for the bacteria and fantas that if you give this to a newborn, it sleeps through the night as 50% fewer bowel movements that are formed 50% fewer diaper changes from mom and dad as an older child less prone to asthma, obesity, type two diabetes and has a higher IQ. So you can ferment different microbes for specific effects, but rotaries kinds of prototype example. So we need to source the microbe. We’re currently sourcing it as a commercial product called a BioGaia gastrous GA s tr U S. Now, here’s something I know. This is tedious. So I apologize to your audience. This is kind of tedious. But when you play with me, I know. You have to pay attention to strain. Easy illustration. Yeah. So I have ecoli. Everyone, your audience has E coli. But what if you ate lettuce content right count contaminated by cow manure with E. coli, you can die of that E. Coli. So same species, different strains. So we have to pay attention to strain to some degree and we play with microbes. That’s a strange reusing are the two strains that come in that gastrous tablet now we’re doing a mouse trial right now, comparing different strains. I want to know if they’re strains that are better at it. So we have several successive studies ongoing with animals to see if there’s differences among the strains. So don’t know yet don’t have the results yet probably in about, I think about a month we’ll have the results. So for now we go with the strains we know work and that’s the BioGaia gastro strains problem. They sell it to you, as it tablets made for babies. So the dose is teensy weensy, so 100 million of each, which sounds like a lot, but in microbes is nothing. That was my motivation for making yogurt, we’re going to increase the number of microbes 1000 fold. So when you first start out, what we do is just take the tablets, put them in a baggie, crushed them with a mortar, or with a rolling pin or heavy jar anything. So they’re all crumbled. Put that in a bowl, we add a prebiotic fiber to feed, it’s like putting cow manure on your garden, you’re gonna have bigger tomatoes. put about a tablespoon of a prebiotic fiber like inulin or raw potato starch inexpensive. I reject the idea that we should limit fat, I think that’s stupid. So we use Orgonite, half 18% fat. So make a slurry first. So everything suspended, then top it off with the rest. And then you need some device, cover it saran wrap, whatever. And then keep it in some device at 100 degrees Fahrenheit could be a suevey sticker base and suevey could be a dehydrator could be a yogurt maker could be instant pot. Some means just keeping it at 100 degrees, give or take for 36 hours. First batch by the way tends to separate into curds and whey. It’s subsequent batches that are more uniform. I don’t know why I don’t know why. And, you know, another interesting thing about these yogurts is they all taste different. So Lactobacillus reuteri yield is very different than lactobacillus brevis yogurt tastes very different than Lactobacillus gasseri yogurt tastes very different than the SIBO your tastes very different than by for the bacteria and fantasy yogurt. It’s really an interesting little experiment. But that’s what we’re doing. And by the way, it doesn’t have to be yogurt or dairy. It could be coconut milk, it could be salsa, it could be pureed fruit puree, the process of fermentation reduce the sugar content, so it’s still perfectly compatible with a low carb type lifestyle. There may be some additional steps though, like with coconut milk, you don’t want to buy cans that have some kind of thickening agent in it like guar gum, I’m sorry, like xanthan gum, or jellen gum or, or Carageenan. That screws it up. So you want just coconut milk. And then there’s a couple extra steps, you have to throw in use of a blender, you got to add some guar gum, because it tends to separate. So it’s very easy. But I put all those recipes in a super good book, because I had many failed batches before I learned how to do it the right way.

Dr. Mindy
And what about if you add in raw milk, it’s already got a lot of probiotics and prebiotics in it is that you’re heating it up. So that’s going to die off anyways, would that affect the did you test that to see if it affected the strains?

Dr. William Davis
Yeah, you have to heat it. Because in case there’s even a miniscule quantity of Listeria monocytogenes or Staphylococcus aureus from the cow’s out or even if there’s a little bit when you ferment, you amplify counts 1000 fold, and you can, you can actually die of that yogurt. So it’s, it’s unlike,

Dr. Mindy
so no raw milk. So, no, don’t do raw milk because we have a lot of raw milk fans in this audience. So you’re saying don’t don’t do this yogurt with raw milk.

Dr. William Davis
So as your listeners know, there’s a little bit of teensy wit risk by consuming raw milk. But you amplify the risk hugely when you ferment it. That’s the problem. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy
yeah. Yeah. Well, I’m glad I asked the question. And, you know, we have a local farm gal at the farmers market that has fermented salsa. It is the best salsa in the world. So I love that you said we could take these and fermented in salsa. Do you tell us just so people understand in your book? Are there are they capsules that you open up and put into this stuff into the into the salsa and then then heated up for 36 hours? Like, how do we make sure we’re getting the right strain to your point, and especially in the SIBO yogurt because we’ve got multiple different bacteria we’re putting in Correct?

Dr. William Davis
Yeah. So with salsa, you’re going to have to add some starter. So let’s say I want to make bacillus coagulants salsa. I’ll take a capsule bacillus coagulants and emptied in there, stir it, of course cap it, you want to keep air away from it. So you need some means of topping it off with something or a little contraption like a little plate. I use a glass. I have like an old olive jar. I have a drinking glass. It fits perfectly in this in the top of it and it pushes everything down because you don’t want air to contact your fermenting foods because that invites mold fungi. And so you also want to use of course, non iodized salt and filtered water that has no chlorine or fluoride. So, it but it’s an illustration of just how much how many anti microbials were exposed to in this world. And of course, if you were one of my favorite things to do this is really easy for you listeners is to make sparkling saccharomyces boulardii juices, it’s really easy. So, so, in case your listeners don’t remember, Saccharomyces boulardii is a fungus. And it’s probably the most important thing someone can do to preserve the integrity of their microbiome during antibiotics. So let’s say you have taken out because you got some, sometimes we need to, well, if you drink this juice, the best thing you can do to preserve to minimize the loss of bacterial species. So what we do is just by any juice any volume, so long as it doesn’t have a preservative like potassium sorbate, or sodium benzoate, so any juice but the Pope, you’re the better. So apple cider, Mango passionfruit, grapes, whatever. So, of juice, empty a capsule of the commercial probiotic Flora store, that saccharomyces boulardii, just one capsule, stir, lightly cap, this one can be exposed to air, but you want to cap it, though, but cap it lightly, because within 24 hours, you’re gonna see it bubbling. That’s how much fermentation is. You see co2, carbon dioxide bubbles, and if you cap it too tightly, you’ll actually have an explosion on your hands ferment for 48 hours, I anticipate Alder, it’s going to taste like sparkling juice. If used apple cider can taste like apple soda, if you did grape juice can be grape soda, we only consume a half, I’m sorry, quarter half cup per serving maybe twice a day or so because there is still some sugar. The fermentation process reduces the sugar by 50%. But there’s still some sugar. So you want to be overexposed to sugar. But it’s a delicious and fun way. It’s virtually foolproof to just do this on your kitchen counter interesting.

Dr. Mindy
And this is your ways and are all those good.

Dr. William Davis
This is you taking the low counts in the probiotic they sell you and increasing the counts for greater factors.

Dr. Mindy
It is so genius. I just want to tell you like I just I love what you’ve done with this to put it in food and give us the power to be able to make it on our own is it’s just incredible. Are all those recipes in your book? Is that everything you’re talking about? So if people want to read more up on it,

Dr. William Davis
they all are except for the saccharomyces boulardii juice, sparkling juices, because I thought of that only like eight months ago.

Dr. Mindy
Of course, yeah, the problem when you write a book, you have to have it ready to go, you know, a year or so before it actually comes out to the world. I get that I get that. What what do you how do you feel about fasting so that’s my passion. I have a book coming out in December called fast like a girl. And you know, I’ve the research I’ve seen on fasting is that it’s a beautiful way to get some dye off of some of these bad bacteria. And I’m wondering if we break a fast with your yogurts, we break a fast with the with the sparkling and so you You’re killing the bacteria while you’re fasting, but then you’re adding the good bacteria in Have you have you tried that? And what are your thoughts on fasting?

Dr. William Davis
We haven’t looked at it formally. But I’m gonna bet you’re right, that this is a way to accelerate the process. The downside of fasting is you kill off bad microbes and good microbes. So there’s it’s not. In other words, fasting isn’t selected for one or the other. And so doing what you’re suggesting, and re implanting the good guys is a really good idea, especially the ones that take up residence, small bowel and produce bacteria sins. So that’s a really good idea. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, this is I came up with it when I was treating so many SIBO patients, I was like, Okay, let’s just start these suckers out. But what I struggled with is to find the right thing to reintroduce. So you just gave me like, I can’t wait to dive into the book and try the different recipes. And then just experiment with that. So those of you that have been following me for a while, let’s, let’s all do that. And then give us give us feedback. Because I look at fasting as just let’s wipe the slate clean. And now let’s repopulate kind of like tilling you’re getting rid of the old dirt in your garden and then putting new dirt in that can actually your garden can grow from that. That’s the way I look at it. So how how have you found that no people need a probiotic at all after they do this, this yogurt in your in your community.

Dr. William Davis
You know as time goes on, I think some people view probiotics as the solution and they’re not. Unfortunately, the current monograde most commercial probiotics are really nothing more than haphazard collections of microbes. So in other words, there are a number of things not incorporated. There’s no awareness of what are called guilds or kings. Sasha have bacteria. So the only person I the only product I know does that is a product called Sugar shift formulated by my friend, Dr. Robert Kano, who is a 40 year academic microbiologist. And where I will ask this question, can we get a collaborative group of organisms that in this case consumed fructose, sucrose and glucose in the GI tract, and we gave this to 20 people, and it reduced fasting glucose by 9.8 milligrams in non diabetics, which is on a par with metformin, with no side effects crazy. So that’s, that’s an example of a Gilder Consortium. But I know of no other product that does that, where they actually collaborate, put together a collaborative guild, or the counter to low. So if it’s 2 billion or 5,000,000,001, of the things we don’t have a lot of in the microbial world is dose response evidence. So there for instance, there’s a study in which Rotary, the 6475 string was given to ladies versus placebo. And the ladies on Rota, I had 50%, less bone loss over a year than placebo ladies, that was 10 billion per day. Well, if 10 billion does that, what is 100? billion? Nobody knows. So we lack a lot of dose response. Do I think the evidence little by little is inching towards the idea that high counts are what we want, like 50 billion 100 billion, even a trillion. And I’ve done that I’ve taken a trillion by the rotor on several occasions, with no ill effect. Or some other there’s a failure to to include keystone species. If you don’t have gas, right? You made a mistake. You don’t have water if you’ve made a mistake. And so we’ve already taken say, as lactobacillus brevis. And by for the bacteria, lungs. That’s an incomplete probiotic. So there’s a lot of problems with current Cropper. And then there’s always gimmicks with the probiotics spore based there is no evidence zero to tell us that spore base is superior. That’s nonsense. The marketing says things like well, these these survive, spores survive stomach acid and bile will so do the next two. There may be some declining counts, but they survived their run. Right, right. Since is perfectly comfortable at a pH of 1.5. Extreme acidity and crazy efficient did bring your finger up. So there’s a lot of gimmickry. Is, is one product getting a lot of press that has its double encapsulated. Well, why would it’s double encapsulated so that it releases its microbes into the colon? What about the 100 and 60 million people with SIBO? You want release in the small. So there’s leathers gimmickry going, this recent project came out its claim to fame is that it contains 115 species, and I can’t tell where it comes from because they’re saying comes from food that it’s a comes from a human, I don’t know, but 115 Different species, most of which aren’t even labeled properly. Half of them are what are called Proteobacteria fecal microbes. I gotta wonder if the FDA is going to clamp down on that one, because and I took it, I got sick. So I won’t say. But it’s one that has 115 strains, that half of which are fecal microbes, Proteobacteria. And so there’s a lot of gimmickry in the program, it’s going to improve as people would walk about these kinds of things, and maybe even formulate some ourselves. But right now, the last thing on the list that helps restore microbiome is a probiotic, it shouldn’t be that way. But it is that way.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, well, we and we’ve commercialized a mouse. So everybody thinks that’s going to be the solution, right to their, to their gut problems. So what what do you think one thing I’ve thought a lot about is we’ve spent so much time in medicine focused on human cells, and we’re just starting to appreciate the microbiome. Do you feel like the in the new health the way that you and I want to see the healthcare sort of emerge? Do we need to sort of look at microbes as having an influence over our over the human cells and stop trying to manipulate the human cells, but actually work on changing the microbiome to enhance whatever’s going on inside our cells?

Dr. William Davis
Yeah, you’re hitting on a very popular new concept in the world of the microbiome is the concept of the so called holobiont. That is that we’re not humans, we are humans. Accompanied by trillions of microbes in every orifice. Exactly. The crazy thing is, as you know, is all the organs we thought were sterile or not. They’re teeming with microbes, the brain, the urinary bladder, I’ve treated attract infections over the years, because and you’re wasting Oh, you want your urine to be sterile? No, you don’t want your urine to be filled with microbes, but the right microbes, there’s a really cool conversation going on in the gynecologic world. And that is the urinary microbiome is determined by the vaginal microbiome. Because we can’t really directly change the urinary microbiome, there’s nothing you can do to change that directly. But you can change the vaginal microbiome. So some of the new science, vaginal microbiome shows that a healthy vaginal microbiome is dominated by lactobacillus crispatus. And other lactobacillus species is lacking in bacteria like Gardnerella, vaginalis, and at a podium, and fecal microbes. Now here’s the twist. 1/3 of all women in the world have the opposite. They have very little lactobacillus crispatus, and other lactobacillus. And they have perforation of Gardnerella. And at a podium and fecal microbes, as well as Canada, and fungal organisms, a third, and the big risk beyond just irritation, discharge, etc. The big risk is premature delivery of a child, and a third of the wind interesting world. And so that side, and that is the presumptive cause of repeated urinary tract infections, or at least a lot of them. Interesting thoughts in the urine is protective.

Dr. Mindy
You know, it’s interesting that you bring up the vaginal microbiome, I recently have been looking at what the connection between the health of the vaginal area including the cervix and how it plays out in the other parts of our body. So for example, in utero, I don’t know if you knew this, I just recently learned this, that our vocal cords and our cervix originally were of the same tissue, and then they separate out and they become your vocal cords, they become your your cervix. And if you look at the tissue themselves, like if you actually go and look at them, Google them, you’ll see they look very, very similar. So could you use you know, the yogurts like this? I don’t know if you’re doing it like as a douche? Or if you have to just you just eat it. But could we start to look at the vaginal area, the microbiome is the vaginal area to start to affect all other areas in a woman’s body? Do we know anything about that?

Dr. William Davis
Yeah, that’s an emerging concept, this idea of crosstalk between species and also translocation. So I find remarkable a woman can take, let’s just say lactobacillus crispatus. It’s, by the way, when we talk about these things, your listeners have to know that sometimes you’re talking about the science that has not yet been commercialized. So it’s really tough to find lactobacillus crystals, but you can like Gero has a product called Gerald deathless women. Net does have the CRISPR Addison. So there’s going to be more and more products to do this. Because there’s some hurdles to go through regulatory and commercial going from the laboratory to a commercial product. And so there’s there’s a delay of typically a couple of years between science and then commercialization. But I find remarkable a woman can take let’s say, lactobacillus crispatus, orally, and it will populate her vagina and her bladder, well, how did he get there, there’s no connection that anybody knows of what it’s presumptively by contiguity because they’re near each other in the perineum, you know, they’re real close. So they somehow share. That’s also true, that is kind of this kind of creepy. It’s also true, the fecal microbes. So that whole areas is party area, it’s got all kinds of stuff being shared. So, but there’s also a reverse example would be here’s the bacterium nucleo Adam. This is a microbe that we all have in our mouths. By the way, the mouth is the second most densely populated microbiome after the colon. So think about that when you get your honey. Well, one microbe that rates is called bacteria nucleosome. And if you have gingivitis or even worse, periodontitis, the populations of fuser victim go way up, and then implant itself in your colon where it’s associate with colon cancer. If I take that microbe put it in a mouse with a normal colon it gets colon cancer. If you look at colon cancer from a human that’s been taken out, it’s filled with new fuse a bacterium, but here’s the kicker. How did he get from here to colon? Well, swallowing, right? No, it gets the blood. Yeah. So cross talk. It’s becoming clearer now. Have another one. If a woman takes by 30 bacteria and fantas like the A vivo strain EVC 001 strain that has the best science from UC Davis. If a woman takes that microbe, it populates her mammary glands, so that when she breastfeeds her tasty the baby gets it. Why did he get the gastrointestinal tract to the memory? Because there’s cross talk of all sorts going on. Good and bad. You know what worries me is? There’s some very elegant work from Ruth Alonso’s lab in Spain, where she they did something crazy. They took paper brains of people who died young people who died in traumatic accidents like car accidents, and then stain the brain for fungi, no fungi. They took the brains of people who were old, but didn’t die of dementia, moderate fungal infestation, they took the brains of people who died of Alzheimer’s filled like a Wyoming sky at night filled with fungi fungus, they took it further, they look for fungal COTC DNA in the bloodstream and the cerebrospinal fluid and people fill with fungal proteins and DNA. And then the real kicker, a Harvard group about two years ago showed that you know, the stuff that accumulation people with dementia is beta amyloid plaque. And there are drugs actively reduce beta amyloid plaque. There’s several of them, and they all make your dementia worse. So wow, the theory has is undergoing change. Maybe beta amyloid plaque is not the cause maybe it’s a consequence. So this Harvard group looked at the microbial effects of beta amyloid plaque. It’s not a very good antibacterial. It’s an excellent potent antifungal. Isn’t that interesting? Well, what the hell does that mean? There’s an important subset of people with dementia. That’s due to fungal infestation, and if so, where did it come from? Well, some people like Dale Bredesen say the sinuses I say it’s the colon I say it’s the GI tract. Because as you know, it’s common to SIBO is C fo small, intestinal fungal, or at least colonic overgrowth of fungi is also very, very common.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, yeah. I mean, when I when I listen to you talk, I’m like, we have got health all wrong. And I just so grateful, you know, again, the the books you’ve put out into the world have transformed the paradigm. You know, you’re you’re shaking the paradigm up. So I love that because the paradigm of health is not working. If it was working, we wouldn’t have all the chronic diseases that we have. So I just so grateful for you. What’s the next book? By the way? Do we have another book in the in your brain there?

Dr. William Davis
Well, I do and I don’t want to say the title, the working title, because I think it’s a good title. But the question I’m

Dr. Mindy
asked, yeah, I get it.

Dr. William Davis
But one thing we have to be mindful of is, you know, you and I talked before started recording is that people like you and me. And other book authors on health are no longer welcome in big media because of the influence of drug advertising and the flow of revenue. So as I mentioned, you had a publisher even say to me, if we can’t make money publishing books on health, maybe we won’t publish books on health. Well, how do we continue to get this message out? Through books? Well, what if we kind of give it a non health spin? So one of the things I’ve been thinking about is, you know, so almost all of us have lost Reuter eye. And thereby oxytocin. Does that mean, the intensity of love and affection today is much less than it was 50 years ago, or 100 or 1000 years ago? And could this be at least part of the explanation behind the exploding divorce rate? suicide, depression, isolation? I think I’m not so silly as to suggest that’s a sole solution. But I think it’s a big part of the solution, because I see it all reversing now, I see people telling me ladies will come and say, you know, my husband is normally not very demonstrative. He’s been eating the yogurt. And he says to me out of the blue, Hey, honey, you know, I’ve always liked you. I like you more now. Come here, sit next to me, please. Or I use myself and two strangers in line for coffee at Starbucks, something I never did before. Or I accept the differences of opinions. They have a right to their opinion, and I respect it. I mean, a complete change. But it’s also true for intensity of love and affection. I think it is tough as hell to prove

Dr. Mindy
Oh, but you can do it. I love where you’re going with this.

Dr. William Davis
So one of the things that I did was I got the oxytocin blood and salivary levels on three indigenous populations. So I called Paul Zak is a faculty member at at Claremont in California. And he did something crazy. He went into the deep jungles of New Guinea and He says the first thing that strikes you is the stink of Filthy humans. But he said they were warm, wonderful people. But he said they were so unfazed that it took for alcohol swabs just to find the vein. Hmm. Wow. So he draws their blood and rumble oxytocin levels. So these are people living in the jungle. There’s no antibiotics. There’s no glyphosate, there’s no herbicides and pesticides, and there’s no stomach acid blocking drugs. So presumptively untouched by Western life. Well, the problem is, the methods to measure oxytocin are so wildly variable, it’s hard to make sense of so I was hoping to prove that primitive people have much higher levels of oxytocin than we do. But I’m not sure I can prove that. What if these kinds of superficial interactions that are popular with modern people like Tinder, you know, back and forth and an online dating, is this a symptom of the distance we’ve drawn between each other from the loss of oxytocin? I think it is. And I wouldn’t have said that, except that now I see, all the people were storing oxytocin and what’s happening to them?

Dr. Mindy
Amazing. Oh, my gosh, and if you if you can restore oxytocin in humans, which restores love and connection and compassion, you will be even more of a hero than I already think you are. So this has been amazing. I again, I just, I really appreciate the way your brain thinks I really appreciate your work. So keep writing them, keeping more books is better for the world. So one last question. We’ve been doing it this year, and on my podcast, I’ve been asking everybody, if they have all my guests, if they have a gratitude practice? Do you have a daily gratitude practice that you do?

Dr. William Davis
I should. I do not, though, I remind myself as a really powerful practice, because it seems to bring good things to you. So thank you for the reminder. But I will thank you for what you’re doing. Because as as we talked about, we live in a world where the pharmaceutical industry is so dominant, that they have essentially shut us down. That is we can’t get on Morning News. We can’t get on talk shows anymore, whereas I was on numerous shows. And it all stopped. Yeah. For me, it stopped with the publication of the undoctored book. But for most of us any topic now on health and nutrition is no longer welcome. So what you’re doing the podcast world, blogs, websites, summits, all the things that you and others are doing, or so are 10 times more important today than it used to be. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy
oh my gosh, I love that. And, you know, I’m on a mission to change the way that we approach women’s health in our health care care world. But we’re not going to do it through the doctors, we’re going to do it through the women, the individually, and what you just talked about today’s key, I can’t wait to integrate this into my fasting protocols for women. So thank you again, this was this was this is the highlight of my week. So where do people find you for sure they gotta go buy your book, but where else can they find you?

Dr. William Davis
Right, so the super gut book available everywhere. And my kind of central site is Dr. Davis, infinite health.com. There’s a blog with 2000 articles on it. There’s a very busy forum, discussion forum with several 100,000 posts. There’s also I have an inner circle, which is a membership site. But every once a week, we have about a 90 minute to two hour long conversation zoom two way zoom. Typically 7580 people show up at any one time. And we talk about rotary yogurt, the air device, diet, thyroid, all the stuff that’s relevant to what you and I do. I love it.

Dr. Mindy
I love it. Well keep keep writing books keeps educating us all. And again, thank you so much. This is so helpful, and I can’t wait to get out into the world. So appreciate you