The Gut Movie

>> Oh, great, we got berries.

>> We got banana and berries.

Get the shot.

>> Oh, yes.

>> There we go, papa.

Three passion fruits or two?

There we go.

>> Excuse me.

>> Whoa.

>> I'm just checking the ticketsales for tonight's event.

And it looks like we've gotalmost 100 people, which

is good.

This is us.

>> If anybody has any questions,let someone else know.

Because I got to get ready.

For those of you who don'tknow me, my name is Kale Brock.

And it is the name I was given when I was born.

It's on my birth certificate.

I didn't change it to suitthe trendy foods and stuff.

And I'm a journalist and reporter

and have been reporting onand talking about the gut

and the microbiome and how it impacts your life

for the past five or six years.

It's been a fascinatingjourney, and I can tell you

that there are some veryexciting things coming down

the pipeline, some ofthem literally coming down

the pipeline.

Thank you.

We're heading into a medical center

to see a molecular geneticist.

>> And what are we going to do there?

>> What are we doing there?

We're going to have alook at my poo, basically.

I never thought I'd say thatto the camera, but now I have.

I think as a journalistand researcher on the gut

microbiome, it's probably responsible of me

to have a look at my owngut bugs under the scope.

So that's what we're going to do today.

Hello.

>> Hi, Kale.

Welcome to the Smart DNA Lab.

>> Thank you.

I believe you have my poo--

>> Yeah, let's go take a look.

>> --here, somewhere.

I've come to see Dr. Margie Smith, who

is a molecular geneticiststudying the microbiome.

The microbiome is essentially the makeup

of different microbes from bacteria

to parasites and yeast, whichlive on and inside of you.

And to test a microbiome,you need a poo sample.

>> Poop can tell you quitea lot about your gut health.

And we rely on a fingerprintingtechnique, if you like.

So each bacteria has its own fingerprint.

So we can drill down to species level

to define what is actuallyin the microbiome.

The attention that we'reseeing in this area is huge.

Because we've finallyrealized that the microbiome

and the metabolites and the bacteria produced

have a major impact on our health.

>> We have microbes livinginside our digestive system.

And it's a very complex microbial community.

There are bacteria.

There are viruses, fungi,protozoa, worms, slugs,

all kinds of creatures.

And all of these creatures live together

in harmony in a healthy person.

They plant each other.

They harvest each other.

They eat each other.

They control each other, and they do not

allow any one of them to overgrow and to dominate

the scene.

Problem is, we human beings arevery good at creating imbalance

on our planet.

When we take antibiotics, whenwe eat chemical-laden food that

is grown for us by our chemicalagriculture, when we take

any other chemicals into the body,

a part of that microbial community

gets damaged, which meansthe balance is upset.

So when that community is not balanced

and certain microbes are in excess

and other microbes are not there,

we don't digest food well.

We don't absorb it well, andwe develop multiple nutritional

deficiencies.

At the same time, this pathogenic microbes

digest food that we swallowin their own sweet way,

converting it into a wholehost of very toxic substances.

And they damage theintegrity of our gut wall,

making it porous and leaky.

Holes develop literally in the gut wall.

So these toxic chemicals thatthese microbes have created

absorb.

They absorb into the bloodstream and get

distributed all over the body.

And wherever they get to, they cause trouble.

They will cause disease.

If they get in the brain, they could

cause any group of symptomsthe brain can produce.

And sometimes these group of symptoms

can fit into an establisheddiagnostic label,

such as bipolar disorderor depression or anorexia

or schizophrenia or autism.

Indeed, every chronic disease, whether it's

mental or physical disease,begins in the digestive system.

>> The microbial cells in ourbody are estimated to vastly

outnumber our own human cells.

Most of these little guys liveinside your digestive system.

In fact, you can have up to2 kilograms worth in there.

The person sitting next to you right now

might share around 99% of thesame human DNA as yourself,

but only 10% of the same microbial DNA.

So experts are now saying that it's

these microbes and the differences

in our microbiome genetics whichaccount for a large part of who

we are as unique human beings.

>> The microbiomes are very complex.

We can think of it actuallyas a complex organ now.

And it has very wide rangingimpact on human health.

We now understand that thegut microbiome interacts

with the immune system,metabolic responses, and brain

function in the host.

So at this time, we think that establishing

a healthy microbiome is essential.

>> Every few years, there'sgreater understanding

of different systems within the body.

And over the last decade or so there's greater,

I suppose, acknowledgmentof the role of bacteria,

both in our gastrointestinalsystem, but also on our skin.

The gut's responsible for our mood.

It's responsible for our interpretation

of our environment.

It alters the way inwhich we feel about life.

>> So we have bugs everywhere.

We have in our sinuses, our ears.

We have on our skin.

We have them in our digestive tract.

Everywhere you look, there arebugs that live symbiotically

with us.

>> Bacteria don't just sitthere and chomp away on whatever

remnants have managed tomake it past your stomach.

They're there to produce metabolites.

Those metabolites mightfire up your immune system,

your innate immune system, or they

might work really well withit and keep inflammation

at bay in your body.

>> It has multiple functions,but one of the most important

one is what's called colonization resistance,

where it prevents us fromcolonizing with new bugs that

might like to infect us.

Unless we damage itpartially with antibiotics,

then, yes, it colonizes.

>> Now we're starting to understand that keeping

the bugs healthy within ourbody and keeping, I suppose,

a really nice, healthyenvironment for our bacteria is

a far better thing to dothat than to try and kill

everything.

When you think about how muchantibiotics we're using just

in health care, let alonein our farming practices

and our food preparation,it's a massive problem.

We have to scale back on antibiotic use.

>> We are decimating a very,very important symbiotic

relationship with these bacteria.

>> What we have learned overthe last few decades is that

actually there are many,many more microbes that are

beneficial to us than are actually harmful to us.

Antibiotics are associatedwith damage to the microbiota,

and have also beenassociated with the increased

risk of thenon-communicable disorders.

Multiple courses orprolonged use of antibiotics

can cause a permanent state of degradation

that then acquires its own resilience

and is much harder to recover from.

>> If you put the microbiomeinto a state of flux,

what recolonizes may not be healthy.

>> A lot of the good bugs thatwe've lost in our gut are not

probiotics, and so you can never replace those.

We often see a spiral downwardsof people where they're

given antibiotics for infection, and then

something else pops up, and they've actually

been made more susceptible to infection

by being treated withantibiotics because when you

wipe out the good bugs that are strengthening

the immune system, they're obviously

less able to resist infection.

In your gut, you have receptorsfor your immune system called

Peyer's patches.

And that's the principlewindow that the immune system

has on the outside world.

And if you've got lots of badbugs stuck to your Peyer's

patches, then the immune system says,

ah, we've got to try and kill those off.

We'll produce inflammation.

There are all sorts of health consequences

that flow on from there.

The microbiota is less able to support health

and more likely to promote disease.

We're talking about allergicdisease, autoimmune disease,

metabolic conditions, suchas diabetes, Type 1 and 2.