The Mind-Gut Conversation Podcast

Welcome to the latest episode of the Mind Gut Conversation Podcast, a place to learn from thought leaders in the area of health, food, the science of mind-body interactions and the environment. Today, I have the great pleasure to speak to Sonu Shivdasani, a visionary Indian wellness resort entrepreneur who is the CEO and founder of Soneva Fushi and Soneva Jani, as well as other luxury wellness resorts in Southeast Asia. Having just spent 10 days at the SOUL Festival on Soneva Fushi, I am still amazed at the scope and uniqueness of the experience, touching every aspect of human life from the physical, emotional, spiritual and planetary. By speaking with him, it became clear that this unique experience was a reflection of Sonu’s own beliefs and core values in synergy with his wife Eva. In this episode, I ask Sonu several questions, including: - How did you become this unique individual? What were the key life experiences that made you that person? - You have achieved some amazing accomplishment, despite having to overcome several serious challenges to your own well-being, your health and your business success, demonstrating a remarkable resilience. What has been your secret? - You make no secret out of your successful battle with cancer. What have you learned from this life threatening situation? - Which are the accomplishments you are most proud of? - You have had a fairly conservative education at Eaton and Oxford. How has this education shaped who you are today? - Running several luxury resorts you must come in contact with many well to do individuals many of whom believe that happiness comes from the accumulation of material wealth and luxury. As we talked about at the recent festival, there is another form of happiness called Eudaimonia, doing meaningful things and things that benefit others. Is Eudaimonia your guiding principle in making decisions? - You have had personal experiences with the Western healthcare system but also with many alternative healing practices which are being offered at your resorts. What is your view of the benefits of either one of these approaches to human health? - Speakers at the SOUL festival addressed many aspects of our current world of polycrises, from personal wellness to climate change and planetary health. Are you an optimist or pessimist regarding the direction the world is moving in, and how does your view affect your decision making? - The SOUL festival certainly had a big impact on many participants. How many participants do you believe will change their behaviors after this experience? Thanks for listening! Follow Dr. Mayer: https://linktr.ee/emayer⁠

In this episode of the MGC podcast, I talk to to Dr. Pedro Bastos, a world renowned nutritionist and researcher from Portugal, affiliated with Lund University in Sweden and the European University of Madrid, in Spain. He co-founded CEAN, a Spanish institution providing advanced education in Nutritional Sciences for health professionals. Dr. Bastos lectures globally on nutrition, lifestyle, and health in four languages, and has co-authored several scientific papers in the field in high profile journals, including Nature Medicine and Nature Reviews in Cardiology. Here are just some of the topics we address: - What is an inflammatory diet? - Chronic inflammation in the etiology of disease across the lifespan. - Pros and cons of the Mediterranean diet. - What can we learn from traditional societies. Follow Dr. Mayer: https://linktr.ee/emayer⁠

In this episode of the MGC podcast, I talk to Dr. Elissa Epel, an international expert on stress, well-being, and optimal aging. Dr. Epel is the co-author of the New York Times best-seller “The Telomere Effect: A revolutionary approach to living younger, longer” with Nobel Laureate Elizabeth Blackburn, and the author of the new “Stress Prescription,” an independent bookstore best seller. She is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, at the University of California, San Francisco, where she is Vice Chair of Psychology and directs the Aging Metabolism Emotions Center. She studies the environmental, psychological, behavioral, and social factors that impact cellular aging such as telomeres, inflammation, and mitochondria. Her research interests include how self-care practices such as meditation and positive stress can promote psychological and physiological thriving and is interested in large-scale interventions for communal well-being and health equity. Here are some of the topics we address in this episode: 1) Why chronic stress is toxic to the body 2) The relationship between chronic stress, telomer shortening and aging 3) The different physiological stages of stress 4) How to become stress resilient 5) What are lifespan, health span and disease span Follow Dr. Mayer: https://linktr.ee/emayer⁠

Dr. Tracy Bale discusses how parental trauma can affect the offspring. Topics include the influence of stressful environments on offspring behavior and health, novel signaling mechanisms in trauma, transmission of parental experiences to the offspring through maternal-infant interactions, attachment styles, and more.

In this episode of the MGC podcast, I talk to Emilie Berner, MA a chef educator and integrative health coach in Los Angeles.  Emilie received her master’s degree in food studies from New York University, and her health coaching certification from Duke Integrative Medicine. She trained at The Natural Gourmet Institute for Health Supportive Culinary Arts, and is the Chef & Coordinator at New York Presbyterian Hudson Valley Hospital’s Teaching Kitchen, where she also manages the organic garden.  Currently, she teaches at the Institute of Culinary Education in Pasadena, and leads the Mental Fitness Kitchen and coaching program at Dr. Drew Ramsey’s Integrative Psychiatry clinic. In this episode, I talk to Emily about a wide range of topics related to the food, about the nutritional, emotional, cognitive, social and spiritual dimensions of eating. Rather watch this episode? Check it out here on YouTube: https://youtu.be/E1PgLWcAj2A Follow Dr. Mayer here: https://linktr.ee/emayer

In this episode of the Mind-Gut Conversation podcast, I talk to Dr. Gloria Dominguez, a world-renowned microbiome expert who has studied the pre- and postnatal influences on the developing gut microbiome, and the implications of this early development for health and disease.   Dr. Dominguez is the Henry Rutgers Professor of Microbiome and Health at Rutgers University. She is the Director of the Institute for Food Nutrition and Health and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, and of the Infectious Disease Society of America.    Her work centers and impacts exerted on the microbiome by urban practices, including practices that impair early life microbiota transmission and colonization -such as C-sections- and studying changes on microbiomes across urbanization gradients.    Together with her husband Martin Blaser, she stars in the new, award winning documentary The Invisible Extinction, which is streaming on Amazon.   In this podcast I talk to Dr. Dominguez about several fascinating topics, including:  • The effect of mode of delivery on infant microbiome and health  • Maternal-child microbial seeding interventions.  • Early-life microbiome restoration  • Influence of maternal diet on offspring  • Gut microbiome and COVID-19 • The Microbiome Vault project  

Welcome to episode 56 of the Mind Gut Conversation Podcast, a place to learn about groundbreaking ideas from thought leaders in the area of health, food, the science of mind body interactions and the environment. Today’s guest is Dr. Martin Blaser, a pioneer and global thought leader in the area of the gut microbiome, author of over 650 original scientific articles, of the best selling book, Missing Microbes, a book targeted to general audiences, now translated into 20 languages. Together with his wife Gloria Dominguez, he stars in the new, award winning documentary The Silent Extinction. In this episode, I speak with Dr. Blaser about the following: 1. Since the publication of your best selling book Missing Microbes, what has been the most important breakthrough in microbiome science? 2. The extinction of micro- and macro-organisms are being driven by different mechanisms. Why are the two trends happening roughly on the same time course?. 3. Of the many possible disease mechanisms that could be involved in microbiome changes and increased risk of chronic diseases, which ones do you think are the most important ones? 4. What is your view of the mismatch hypothesis between a microbiome rapidly adapting to environmental/dietary changes and slowly evolving changes in the human immune system, leading to a maladaptive response of the immune system leading to systemic inflammation? In other words, are microbes better in adaptation to different lifestyles and environments than our immune system? 5. Looking into the future, do you believe that humans will dramatically change their lifestyles and their interactions with the environment to prevent catastrophic consequences on our health? A scenario you have referred to as “Antibiotic Winter”. 6. Do you see enough changes worldwide in the inappropriate and excessive use of antibiotics, C-section deliveries, diet, encroachment of wild habitats, etc. that suggest we will be able to dodge the bullet? 7. If there is one intervention that you think would have the biggest impact on our current situation, what would that be? Rather watch this episode? Check it out on YouTube: https://youtu.be/eibJT0iI5nw Follow Dr. Mayer here: https://linktr.ee/emayer

In this episode of the Mind-Gut Conversation Podcast, I have the great pleasure to talk to Dr. Douglas Drossman, a board-certified gastroenterologist, pioneer of the IBS field, and author of several seminal books about disorders of gut brain interactions: 1) Gut Feelings - Disorders of Gut-Brain Interaction 2) Patient - Doctor Relationship: A Guide for Patients and Doctors Dr. Drossman is a board-certified gastroenterologist and his name is synonymous with the Rome Foundation, an organization which has brought international recognition to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and a list of closely related so-called functional GI disorders, a long neglected field in Medicine and Gastroenterology, which are now part of the new subspecialty called Neurogastroenterology.  The Rome Foundation has created a thriving community of healthcare providers interested in different aspects of altered gut-brain interaction, including dietary and psychological treatments. As the Founder and long time President of the Rome Foundation, author of some 280 scientific manuscripts, and passionate promoter of the importance of therapeutic physician-patient interactions, Dr. Drossman was not only a pioneer, but has also had a major long-lasting influence on the field. Amongst many other topics, in this interview we address several important questions, including the following: 1. With the creation of the Rome Foundation process, you have revolutionized the entire field of IBS. Which component (patient education, physician education, disease classification) has been most important in this accomplishment? 2. What is your view on a unifying model of the entire spectrum of brain-gut disorders which manifest in different forms depending on environmental influences, the so-called “exposome” (psychosocial, diet, early life experiences, infections)? 3. Looking back, I am still amazed that it has taken some 40 years from the original view of IBS as a gut and motility disorder (many still share this view) to a disorder of gut brain interactions. Your comment? 4. Looking at a crystal ball, how do you think the view will evolve during the next decade?

Welcome to the latest edition of the Mind Gut Conversation podcast. In this episode, I talk with Dr. Sharon Horesh Bergquist, a Harvard-trained, nationally recognized lifestyle medicine pioneer.  Dr. Bergquist is the Pam R. Rollins Professor of Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine, as well as founder and director of Emory Lifestyle Medicine & Wellness. She is an advocate for advancing healthcare by integrating lifestyle medicine, resiliency, and prevention-based science into clinical care.  She has contributed to numerous health segments, is the host of The Whole Health Cure podcast, and author of the upcoming book Plantology: a cookbook based on the science of plant-based eating.   In this conversation, we discuss a wide range of topics related to her holistic approach to health and disease, including:  • Her unusual career path from mainstream medicine to a new way of healthcare emphasizing prevention and lifestyle changes.  • Her particular interest in the role of nutrition in health.  • Her new book, Plantology.   Enjoy!   Rather watch this episode? Check it out on YouTube here!   Follow Dr. Mayer: https://linktr.ee/emayer

In this latest episode of the MGC podcast, I talk to Dr. Steve Cole, a senior faculty member at UCLA who has created one of the most fascinating approaches to study mind body interactions at the molecular level. He has authored more than 200 scientific publications in high impact journals and is considered the father of a new scientific discipline called Social Genomics.    His extensive body of work provides a new revolutionary understanding of the bidirectional interactions between our genome, our body and the environment we live in.  Dr. Cole is a Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry in the UCLA School of Medicine where he studies the molecular pathways by which social environments influence gene expression by viral, cancer, and immune cell genomes.    In this podcast, I talk to him about a wide range of topics which are profoundly influenced by Social Genomics, including:   • How our bodies are continuously influenced by the influence of our social interactions.  • How our genes are influenced by our state of mind.  • Which strategies we can use to take advantage of the plasticity of gene expression to improve our health.  • The two different forms of happiness.  • The future of healthcare. Enjoy!   Rather watch this episode? Check it out on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_UjkZq7_TIc Follow Dr. Mayer: https://linktr.ee/emayer