I’m J. J. Virgin, Ph. D. dropout, sorry mom, turned four time New York Times best selling author. I’m a certified nutrition specialist, fitness hall of famer, and I speak at health conferences and trainings around the globe, but I’m driven, most of all, by my insatiable curiosity and love of science to keep asking questions, digging for answers, and sharing the information that I uncover.

with as many people as I can. And that’s where you come in. That’s why I created the Well Beyond 40 podcast to synthesize and simplify the science of health into actionable strategies to help you thrive. In each episode, we’ll talk about what’s working in the world of wellness, from personalized nutrition and healing your metabolism, to powerful aging and prescriptions.

Join me on the journey to better health so you can love how you look and feel right now and have the energy to play full out at 100. Don’t miss an episode. Subscribe now at SubscribeToJJ. com to start unlocking your healthiest, most energetic self. I think one of the scariest things to think about as you age is It’s cognitive decline, losing your mind.

And what’s really exciting today is I have Dr. Partha Nandy with me and he’s going to talk about the gut brain connection and how when you heal your gut, you can save your brain. In fact, that’s the name of his new book, his New York Times bestseller, Heal Your Gut, Save Your Brain. And we are going to be digging into what you can do, the simple shifts you can make that can have a profound impact.

So let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Partha Mandy. He is a board certified internal medicine gastroenterologist, actually he’s double board certified in both gastroenterology and internal medicine and he is the author of several peer reviewed publications and lectures in the topics of gastroenterology and hepatology.

He is an international health advocate, keynote speaker, and media expert and he is the host of the Dr. Nandy show with millions of viewers worldwide and also the chief health editor at WXYZ ABC Detroit. And, of course, the author of Heal Your Gut, Save Your Brain, and two other books, including Health Heroes.

So this is going to be a really fun interview. We dig into that connection. What can we do now? How can you test? How do you know if you’re Your gut’s off or not. And what is that connection between your gut and your brain? And what will happen as you start to heal your brain? How can you heal your gut?

What are the specific things that you can do that can make that impact, not just on your gut and your brain? but also your entire body. So stay tuned. I’ll be right back with Dr. Partha Nandy.

Dr. Partha Nandy, welcome back. You’ve, you’ve been on like years ago, about time you came back.

That’s right. I’m happy to be back. Thanks for having me.

Well, I’m very intrigued as to why a gastroenterologist is writing a book on cognition because basically heal your gut save your brain. What what’s the story?

Yeah, so, you know, it’s a great question So here’s the thing right the gut and the brain are intimately connected and so, you know, my when my dad had a stroke he had a stroke many years ago and And no risk factors that we knew about went through a million dollar workup. Nobody could figure out why he had the stroke.

And I always thought to myself, you know, what can we do to change things? So now, you know, several years later, doing a lot of work on this, on the subject, you know, it’s pretty apparent that the gut and the brain are intimately related. And with this disease like stroke and cognitive impairment and cognitive function, The gut plays a huge role in it.

That’s why I thought about writing it, because it’s not obvious to people exactly what you asked. Hey, you know, what’s the connection between your gut and your brain? And it turns out there’s a really important one. And what’s nice is that when you can change your gut health, you can change your brain.

And so it’s not like, you know, you got your hands up, like I can’t do anything about it, that I’m kind of, you know, destined to have XY disease or XY type of health. So that’s why I wrote about it.

So, let’s dive into that and explore that more, because you say when you change your gut, you can change your brain.

That’s a broad statement. Are we talking cognitive decline? Are we talking mood and focus? Like, are we talking everything?

Yeah, I think it’s all of the above, and so let me, let me go backwards. So, you know, the gut and the brain are connected in a number of ways. The first one And, and a lot of people have heard about this, is that the vagus nerve, right, connects, it’s a direct connection.

Super, information superhighway of, of signals going back and forth, so if the gut is not In, in tip top shape, your brain is, is gonna know that and it’s gonna function, uh, accordingly. And the same thing with your brain. You know, people, there’s lots of sayings, right? If you, if you, if you, you know, I have butterflies in my stomach or I feel it in my gut.

So when you’re, when your brain is not in optimal function, your gut also feels it. You know, when you’re nervous, why do you, why do you, why do a lot of my patients have, have upset stomachs and they have diarrhea and, And, and, and abdominal pain, et cetera, because the connection is there. So the first one is through the vagus nerve.

The second one, we know that the, the gut is the second brain. Millions and millions of, of neurons in, in the gut wall. When you think of the gut wall, you think of almost like the layers of an onion, right? Multiple layers. In one of those layers sits a tremendous amount of nerves that actually function to be able to not only help the gut move but really function to be able to communicate with your brain.

And the last one is, we, we, we talk about is, is the neurotransmitters that the, that the gut creates. And one of the favorite ones that people talk about is serotonin. 90 percent of serotonin plus is, is, is created in the gut. That can, that can affect not only your gut motility, how the gut moves, but also your brain.

And the way we do that often is through the microbiome. So your questions, you know, all of the above is, is the right, right answer to me. Not only can you change your cognitive performance, also you can decrease cognitive decline. And you can reduce some of the disease that we talk about. In my book, The Heal Your Gut, Save Your Brain, I talk about three main diseases as a construct.

So Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and strokes. And you can see remarkable changes in your gut that also increase your risk for those diseases. So it’s, it’s not just, Hey, you know what? I have a disease. I want to prevent it or treat it. But rather, hey, I’m, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m in a, in a, in a In a work environment or a relationship environment where I want to give the best I have and, and looking at the gut may be the way to go instead of saying, I just, you know, I want to take this, this or that supplement.

You may be able to look inside right into your gut and optimize it and make those changes.

Okay, so how does someone know if their gut’s not optimal? And what does it mean to have an optimal gut? Because you say look inside, but how are we looking? Like what, what tells someone if your gut’s not optimal?

Yeah, and so that’s, that’s the, the million dollar question. How do we even know, I have no symptoms, right? How do we even know that our, that our gut, um, is, is not healthy? So I’ll tell you, if you’re, if you’re living in this part of the world, which is North America, the majority of us Because of our diet, because of the way we live, because of our stressful environment, because of all of the, all of the, the, the, that’s around us most likely we have an unhealthy gut.

If you have symptoms, for example, if you have bloating, abdominal pain, discomfort, you feel uneasy. I had a patient, um, literally last week, JJ, that, that told me he was an executive. A C level executive, he said, I want to crawl under a chair and have no more meetings because of the way my gut feels. But it also is affecting him because he cannot, he’s got brain fog, he can’t function well.

That’s an easy fix, right? Meaning, or not an easy fix, but an easy problem to, to really say, okay, this is, this is my gut. But the vast majority of people don’t have symptoms in, in, in your, that, that are saying my gut is unhealthy. But what I would tell you is that if you are, Having processed foods, if you’re in environments that are stressful, work environments, relationship environments, the cortisol and the inflammation that, that’s producing tells you that, that that is going to create an unhealthy gut, even if you don’t have symptoms.

Now, we have some testing that’s available now, right? So, we have gut intelligence testing from companies, for example, like Viome that can say, Hey, you know what? You may not have the, the best microbiome. You’re starting to have markers of gut inflammation. But again, those are not always commercially available, so I don’t want to give people tools that they can’t, they can’t really, you know, go, go somewhere and actually get it.

What I would say is that every one of us can help our gut. And then the way you help your gut is to be able to have it, have the best microbiome, have the best environment that it, that, that it can, that it can possibly have. And, and the simplest ways. And I talk about it in this book is, is the kind of a five pillar methodology.

You know, food and diet is, is the most. obvious one. People know what they eat is most important. But I will tell you that the mindset that you have, your purpose driven living, if you have movement, spirituality, and community, that can also really help you to be able to optimize your gut. To be, not just, not just heal your brain, Or, or save your cognitive function, but really optimize your general health.

So, let’s back up a little bit, because you say, it sounds like a lot of people are asymptomatic, or the symptoms that they’re having, they’re not associating with gut dysbiosis. A

hundred percent. Another,

another thing I would guess, just kind of working in the gut world for years, it’s like they don’t know their arthritis.

So, I’m going to talk a little bit more about what we’re going to be talking about today.

If you’re living in the world here in the, in the United States, where we have ultra processed foods, 70 percent of people eating that and, uh, or 70 percent of our diet tends to be that. I would assume you and I, not the case, but, um, and you’re living in this world of stress that you’ve got some level. Or is there any type of testing at all that can give you a sign?

Because I always love to measure things if possible.

Yeah, in commercially available labs, it’s the only surrogate is looking at something as general as CRP, right? It’s a, it’s just a, you know, mark of inflammation, but that could be anywhere in your body. But, but specific to the gut, we don’t really have anything.

That’s, that’s available for people who know, for example, diseases like Crohn’s disease, which is, which is an inflammatory disease of your gut. You can have some antibody testing that’s commercially available, but that’s it, you know, for, for, for, for, unless you’re really specific and can go to, go to specific labs that most people don’t have available, you can’t get that testing.

So I agree with you that in general, most of us know that if we’re living in that environment. You are, you, you are susceptible to diseases and you’re absolutely right. People don’t ascribe symptoms of their brain or, or any part of their body, even if they have autoimmune disease, to the gut, but it can be possible.

So it’s recognizing that that connection could be possible, right? And you mentioned gut dysbiosis, so that’s, you know, that’s the word looking at, you know, how your gut microbiome is, but it’s even beyond that, right? It’s actually looking and saying that Even with, even if you have the right microbiome, is there actual inflammation in your gut?

Irrespective of the gut microbiome. The gut microbiome is a great mediator. It’s, it’s a, it’s a way to be able to, for your, for your gut to be able to achieve great health. You know, get the gut barrier, uh, to be active. But if you have unopposed inflammation, right? If you have unopposed inflammation, that means doing simple things like taking a bunch of, for example, simple things like taking.

You know, I’ve been told by my friend that if I have any aches, you just take Motrin, you know, or something as simple as that could change the entire factor for your gut health. So, it could be that. It could be, you know, you are in an abusive relationship. environment, whether work or relationship, and, and that, that unopposed cortisol can also lead to gut inflammation and poor gut health.

And people don’t, people don’t associate that. So, it’s really looking to me at, at, at a five pillar methodology to be able to say, what can I do That can really help my gut and I think that if we look at those, those, those five pillars individually, I think you can really make a remarkable change in all the things I talked about.

How the gut is, is communicating with your, with your brain through the vagus nerve. How it’s, how it’s working through the neurotransmitters. What are, what are being secreted? What kinds of hormones is your gut creating to be able to affect your brain? And I talk about this in, in the, in the book, you know, Heal Your Gut, Save Your Brain, giving you.

Ways to be able to make that happen. So simple ones are recipes and, and diet. But the ones that often are not intuitive is that, Hey, if I, if I have a community of support around the kind that you create, you know, I mean, you know, anybody who’s part of JJ’s community knows you have a community of support.

Interestingly enough. When you have that community of support, you can actually make changes in your entire life, but also your gut.

Well, here’s the important thing with the community of support that I’ve seen. It’s like, if you’re hanging out with a bunch of people that eat ultra processed food, you’re probably eating ultra processed food, right?

So, so let’s dig into, since we can make the leap pretty easily, it’s not really a leap, that if you’re living in our modern world, you probably have some things going on with your gut. And likely, as you start to improve your gut, you’ll notice things that, that maybe you just thought were normal, normal for you, that all of a sudden start to shift, could be as simple as just even, you know, your cognition, your focus, etc.

So, taking something, because I think diet is such a big one, what would you say are some of the key things that you see that need to shift in the diet to help improve your gut?

Well, you said the first one, right? So it’s number one is getting rid of the ultra processed foods. It’s easier said than done because every, everywhere around you, you know, you have ultra processed foods.

So it’s, it’s pretty basic stuff. You want to be able to, and I say at least 80 percent of the time or 90 percent of the time in your life. Try to have whole fruits, right? Whole foods that you see. Fruits, veggies, lean proteins, and also healthy fats. You’re not just talking about, people talk about processed carbohydrates, but you know, the fats that we have are also really important.

Have, have, you know, very simple things like have, have, you know, things like avocado, things like salmon, but, but, but also this involves being in an environment that, that supports you, which you said. was very true. If you’re a bunch of people, that all they’re eating is pepperoni pizza, and you know, and, and, and, and some diet drink every day, that’s what you’re going to do.

So, you, for me, in our family, the way we try to execute that is to have a family meal. So if you have, if you have a group of people that can support you in a community, as you’re making the, as you’re not only creating the food with them, But also, making sure that you hold each other accountable, that also helps you, just simply through your diet, right?

Simply through your diet. But what that community is giving you, is to be able to reduce the whole fight or flight mechanism, right? So when you’re alone, we have a society, A little bit different from the topic we’re talking about, but we have a society where it’s, it’s a crisis of, uh, social isolation, depression, you know, people, there’s a, there’s a epidemic of suicide.

When you have some support, you’re decreasing all those, all those factors to some extent. And how does that help you? Because when you are then taking away that fight or flight mechanism that You know, when you have angst, when you have, um, isolation, you’re increasing your cortisol, you’re increasing all the hormones that, by the way, when you, when that environment of stress is created in your body, we now know from just looking at electron microscopy, you’re breaking the barriers that protect your gut.

Remember, between, between stool on one side and blood on one side, there’s one cell layer and A bit of mucus. That’s all that’s, that’s separating. It doesn’t

seem like we are well designed when you really look at that, you know? 100%. 100%. Who figured that out? We needed a couple more layers there between our gut and our immune system.

And, and now we have leaky gut, leaky brain.

Yep. And, and, and so when you have this unimposed Cortisol, unopposed stress, and, and you have the, the, the environment to create what you’re describing as the leaky gut. When that mucous layer is broken, right, and when you have the little tiny cracks, we’re not talking about big holes, where poop’s coming through, we’re talking about little tiny crevices, right, in the basement membrane, which is the word that’s used where there’s connection, uh, where there’s support, where stuff is not coming through.

When you have little leaks there, you, that, that leak, if it happens. Every, you know, every six months, it’s okay, but when it’s there constantly, that inflammation that begins because of leaky, the leakiness that’s, that’s there. And here’s why, because when you have stuff that comes through, into your, into your, into your bloodstream where it was in your gut wall inside of the, the, the gut lumen where the stuff like poop is, your gut has the most sophisticated immune system and it starts to react to it because it doesn’t know that, hey, this is foreign.

When that inflammation begins, it’s, it can go throughout your entire body and when it can go through your entire body, it then starts affecting The blood brain barrier, which is another barrier where your brain doesn’t want anything to come in unless it invites it in. So when you break that barrier, you begin that same Same, same idea of inflammation, the same concept of inflammation that begins in your, in your brain.

And once that’s unopposed, then you have diseases. We used to think that Alzheimer’s, for example, is just, Hey, you know what? I’m predisposed to it. My aunt had it, my father had it, whatever. And that’s why you have it. We now know that when you have the neurofibrillary tangles, that’s in your brain. That’s, that’s a result of unopposed inflammation.

And a big part of that is, again, as JJ talked about, ultra processed foods. But I will tell you that it’s also the fact that we have a lack of community. It’s also the fact that we are not, we are not paying attention to our spirituality. I mean, you know what spirituality does is the same thing as the community.

It reduces your level of inflammation in your body. This is not just conjecture. Multiple studies will show you that the gut microbiome changes when you have spirituality and your body’s inflammatory status decreases, disease states decrease. And when I say spirituality, it doesn’t mean that It have to pray, it doesn’t mean that you have to do yoga, it can mean just simply going out in the garden and, and, and walking there to know your place in the universe.

This is a, this is a very, very difficult thing for lots of people because they’re barely even taking a moment to breathe because they’re going from one activity to another. So if you can have some spirituality along with community. and then couple it with a diet, whole foods, increased fiber, right, and not have processed foods, then you, and I think you can, you can really break the cycle.

And if you break the cycle of not having leaky gut, having a healthy gut, and then that not leading to leaky brain, there was a, there was a remarkable book called The End of Alzheimer’s that that talked about this, that talked about, hey, you know what, you can, changing the paradigm, changing the equation of Alzheimer’s is not unthinkable, that you can decrease inflammation.

And that’s what we’re alluding to, is that, hey, when you decrease that inflammation, not only are you decreasing the incidence of a disease as devastating as Alzheimer’s, but hey, you may be able to function better and optimize your brain. You know, you know, instead of just taking an ice bath in the morning and jumping and it is freezing ice cold water, maybe do some things with your, with, with purpose driven living, with your diet, with movement, with community and spirituality, and you may get, you know, effects that are more long lasting.

And that’s, that’s what this is about. And so if you can, if you can take those steps, you can, you can work your magic through the gut microbiome. You know, the gut microbiome changes when you have movement in your body. We know that the homeostasis, that the energy mechanism within your gut is more favorable for you to have a more favorable gut microbiome.

And when that happens, you have better gut health. So there’s multiple mechanisms that can make this happen on a microscopic level. But when you look at it from 35, 000 feet, what it does is helps you function more optimally. And as a gastroenterologist, here’s what I’m seeing all the time. People come to see me for their gut symptoms, but, you know, nobody is making, or very few people are saying, Hey, by the way, you know, how are you functioning with the rest of your body?

How’s, how’s your brain function? Do you have brain fog? How, how, how clearly are you thinking? So when you can make that connection, I’ve, you know, when I, when I change their gut health, I’ve often seen many, many, many times that with my patients that their, that their cognitive function is also better and they’re functioning more optimally.

Now were you, did your father’s stroke make you aware of this and make that connection? Or were you already starting to see it or did, was that like the big thing that made you go, ah.

100 percent that was the big thing that made me say ha because here’s, here’s what, you know, I was trained in traditional medicine and I knew, I knew about, I, you know, I, I practice holistic medicine, but, but when my dad had this stroke and it was a devastating stroke, it wasn’t just that he had a transient event, it changed his life.

So the, the net for the last decade of his life, couldn’t enjoy his grandkids. We had to change him every day, all of his activities of daily living. You know, we had to do as a family and I, and I, and I kept thinking what could we have done differently because this is a healthy guy, never been to the hospital, didn’t take any medications, wasn’t hypertensive, you know, and, and the, the, the things that I didn’t know then that I do now is, hey, it’s healthy.

How, how clean was his diet, really? You know, all of us say we eat well. When I ask my patients, they go, Oh, I eat pretty well. Then you get into it. Yeah, yeah. What does that

mean?

I go to Starbucks and have this, you know, giant, whatever, you know, sugary drink every day. That’s, you know, that’s no big deal because everybody else doesn’t.

So when I looked into it, I saw many factors. That, that could have really, you know, led to his, what happened to him. But at the time What type of factors were they that you

saw?

You know, it’s, for example, he, you know, he had community, but his level of spirituality could be higher. His diet could be higher.

His movement. After we retired He, you know, his movements changed dramatically. You know, it was, it was like a lot of us when we retire, we start saying, okay, I’m just going to kind of, you know, relax and this and that. And I think when I looked at all those, I didn’t know it then. We didn’t have the evidence then.

This was, um, uh, probably about, um, seven or eight years ago when, when he passed away. When he had the stroke, it was, you know, well over 15 years ago. At that time, this kind of evidence was, you know, it’s an infancy. It’s still not perfect now. It’s still, you know, we have We have, you know, for example, abstracts.

We don’t have multiple studies showing it. So, back to your question. When we did the million dollar workup, you know, he did a cardiac workup. Everything was fine. No clots. His heart’s functioning well. What gives? And everybody just put their hands up saying, well, you know, it’s what it is. And maybe there’s this or maybe there’s that.

Then I kept, when I looked into it, I said, you know, we’ve got to be able to figure out You know, solutions so people don’t have to go through the same thing my dad did. And that’s what led me to really go deeply. I knew, I knew about this, you know, as, as, as you know, but, but it really led me to go deeper.

And as a gastroenterologist, it was, it was, it was kind of a, a, a lucky thing, right? Because it was fortuitous that I’m in the field that this is actually making the biggest difference. The End of Alzheimer’s is a great book, and it talked about some of these, some of these factors, but I wanted to go beyond just disease and talk about what do people Who are, are not, you know, facing the kind of dilemma that my dad did.

What do they do and how would this help them? So, for example, if you look at, if you look at models, right? You can see, for example, in mice, if you change their microbiome, and this is a model, for example, for, for disease like Parkinson’s, there’s a, there’s a model in which you can look at the microbiome and change the microbiome of, of a mouse and see how it, it, it affects them.

You can see the same Lewy bodies, which are found in a brain of a Parkinson’s patient in, in mice models, right? You can actually see that same, those same Lewy bodies in the gut wall. And the idea is that they are then moving with that vagus nerve, with the gut brain connection, this connection. of inflammation is progressing from the gut into the brain.

So I offer that the Parkinson’s that happens at 65 actually began at age 40. That the, that the Alzheimer’s that maybe happened at 75 actually happened at age 40. We can see that in animal models. Now, if you take, for example, uh, a stroke model. of, of, of, of mice. If you take the microbiome of an older mouse and insert it into a young mouse who then has a stroke, right?

That mouse often doesn’t survive or has horrible outcomes. Conversely, if you take the microbiome of a young mouse and place it in an older mouse and have a stroke that’s induced, they do incredibly well. They do just as well as a young mouse and thrive. So, the idea here is that, you know, we’re talking about neurological events, neurological conditions that are affected tremendously by things that shouldn’t have anything to do with their brain.

But it does, and we’re seeing more and more. And this is all around the world, not just in this part of the world. You see Chinese literature, South American literature, Indian literature, North American literature, it’s all pointing to the same thing. So, to me, it’s an opportunity. It’s the fact that we really have, you know, many of us have given up the fact that, hey, you know what, I’m just, it’s inevitable.

When I’m getting older, I’m going to have, cognitive decline. Now, I’m here to say lots of folks don’t. When you look at the Indian population, when you look at South Korean women, they are, they’re thriving, you know, and they’re thriving in their 90s. And, and so when you look at the factors, it’s very similar to the five pillars I talk about that, that, that, that’s affecting them.

And I believe the primary mechanism is through the gut and gut health.

Yeah, well, I had the good fortune of getting to spend some time in South Korea and I remember the first thing I looked at as we were walking around South Korea, first of all, we went to, you know, we always work out when we’re traveling and both the hotels we had had these amazing gyms, but the amazing gyms was It was amazing.

People were members of. And what was crazy, Parth, as you walk in the gym and here was the JW Marriott with a gym that rivaled, you know, Equinox or any of the other ones in the U. S. Everyone was in a uniform like P. E. class. Wow. It was crazy. And there were people from like 20 years old to 90 in there. And most of the people in there were like 60 plus.

So in the other hotel we went to, same thing. So I was like, this is really interesting. The next thing that I saw was that I didn’t see any overweight people. In fact, I said to Tim, I go, you know, we’ve been walking around the city for a week and I haven’t seen any overweight people. Not in the restaurant.

Nowhere have I. He goes, I saw one . I go, .

Of course he did. Of course they excited

one. I go, that’s the point. You know, and then you go to eat and. You know, the food was fermented, high fiber, it was fantastic food, like just amazing. So they’re very active, the food’s like super clean, rich in fiber. I mean, we finally decided, because we heard about Korean fried chicken, we’re like, we must go have the Korean fried chicken, because Tony Yoon said we had to have it.

So we’re having it, you know. So we go to have it. And even that’s fried in olive oil. I go, this is, this is like an entirely different world than what we’re used to here. Um, and so, you know, here are the lessons. Because as I’m listening to you say this, I go, well, wouldn’t we want to look at the places where they’re not getting?

You know, neurodegenerative diseases, and do what they’re doing. Like, everyone talks about the blue zones, and I’m like, well, let’s look at what, what is going on here, because I think, it seems like the science of the microbiome, at this point, we don’t know yet what an optimal microbiome looks like, do we?

And we don’t really have a great way, I mean, right now, where are we in the science of the microbiome? Can we test it? Do we really know what? where someone’s microbiome needs to be and what they need to do to correct it.

If we don’t have cause and effect, that’s a, it’s a great question, right? The problem is that for the general person, you know, you have some, you have a few diagnostic techniques to be able to say, hey, you know what?

This is what we feel like your optimal microbiome could be based on species. But we, we don’t, what we can’t test for is Hey, what about the yeast? What about the viruses? What about the protozoa that are also there? We just have, have kind of the tip of the iceberg, but even that’s a start, right? And what you talked about is, is so important that it’s not about, hey, let me live my life and then do these things so I can have better cognitive function.

What I talk about in the book is that make it part of your life, and what you experience in South Korea is that it’s not an aberration, right? There are 90 year olds walking around and people are now thinking, Ooh, there’s a 90 year old, I can’t believe she can actually remember anything. It’s a way of life.

So, when you, when you, when you talk about the microbiome, absolutely, we’re getting glimpses into associations, right? Cause and effect is different than associations. We know that certain species When you have them in abundance it has been shown to hey, you know, you have less Less incidences of, of stroke, of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, different species, but, but, but, but looking at a 35, 000 feet level, those people also have these practices that are in common again and again and again.

And it’s not, and I’m talking about just neuro, neurodegenerative diseases and cognitive decline. But guess what? They’re also the same folks that have less arthritis, less heart disease, less autoimmune disease. So, we’re talking about this is the wheel, and I offered you the wheel is the gut. And one of the spokes is to the brain and cognitive decline.

But the side effect, by the way, is that you may actually be able to move into your 90s without having a hip replacement, knee replacement, just name the, you know, the replacement. You may also be able to Have a healthy heart and not have, you know, psoriatic arthritis or, or some other autoimmune disease.

You may actually be able to have great lungs. So this, the, the, the, the, the moral of the story is that we knew this thousands of years ago. We just, in modern medicine, we’ve forgotten about this. I mean, you look at Chinese medicine, Indian medicine, even. If you look at the ancient Greek text, they talk about the gut being the center of all of this and to be able to affect it.

And what’s nice about it is that it’s one of the few places you can actually make some changes pretty easily. And we talk about diet, but I will say all the other things I talk about, which is again, purpose driven living, movement, and not just movement once in a while to go to the gym, make movement a part of your life.

If you ever see JJ at any meetings, Or whatever she’s, she’s always moving and not just saying, I’m working out now. And it’s, it’s about making movement and part of your life and creating an environment of support that, that taught people who believe in this. And they’ll just look at you and roll their eyes and say, come on, have a, have another donut and, and pressure you into feeling like that’s normal because I’ll tell you, everything counts.

Right. And I said, 90%. If you can make it 100%, that’s great, but real life, I have kids, lots of people have, have family members, you go to a party every so, so often, it’s okay, but make it a part of your life to have a community that supports you, and use spirituality. I mean, I, I try to meditate at least 10 minutes a day, every day.

If meditation, meditation is not your thing, if prayer is what it is, or yoga, whatever it is, it will make a difference in your life, and, and you’ll think clearly, have more energy, and I think, If we could all do this, we can change, we can change the curve to not have Alzheimer’s be such a devastating epidemic.

You look at India, such a small percentage of the population has Alzheimer’s. Now they have different problems, right, based on the environment, but this disease state, they don’t have. You look at South Korea, very small numbers of folks. There are many places in the world you can do that. We can replicate that.

And so what I’m giving is just a A small glimpse of what you can do in your life. And I, and I, and I talk about it in more detail in the book, obviously, but it’s just giving you a, a glimpse of what you can do. Simple steps. I don’t try to make it complicated, because the moment you do, it’s gonna fail.

Like, I’m not gonna give you 14 steps, etc. So, I think that we have an opportunity to make those changes now. And it, and it doesn’t have to be when you’re 80, right? It’s, it can happen when you’re, a lot of folks that are watching are in their 30s, 40s, 50s, that are, you know, for, for all intents and purposes are healthy.

You know, if you don’t have a heart attack, if you don’t have a stroke, I mean, if you don’t have a heart attack or cancer, what are you worried about? To me, most of my patients are worried about losing their mind. That’s their number one fear, even more than death. And I think we have a prescription to be able to change that, which we didn’t talk about before.

When I was in medical school, we didn’t talk about that. We didn’t talk about, hey, how can you change? the entire focus of your health besides taking pills and doing some things like some general checkups. Very important. But this is a kind of a very fundamental change in your mindset and your habits to be able to make that happen.

Well, what’s great about this, and I’ve got it right here, is when you follow these five pillars, and I love that you’ve simplified it. These also aren’t don’t they’re not costly and like these are things that you can do You can incorporate ten minutes more, you know, ten minutes of mindfulness into your day You can move more throughout the day.

You can swap some of your ultra processed foods for whole foods You know and and these aren’t costing you money and they’re really not taking time And the side benefits, you know, when you take a drug, you have the side effects. When you do these types of things, you have side benefits. So you might be doing this because you’re concerned because a parent had Alzheimer’s or something like that, but all of a sudden you do this and your arthritis is gone.

So I always love the side benefits that happen with this. Now you have a, a gift for everybody. That I am excited about because it fits in perfectly here and it is let me look here I think it’s a superfoods cookbook that you’re giving everybody. Yes.

Yes. Yes amazing recipes that talk about we love recipes Yes,

we we love we always love recipes here So that’s fantastic the superfood cookbook and that will be at JJ virgin comm forward slash Nandi and a and di so you’ll be able to grab that and of course you’ll want to grab heal your gut save your brain at Amazon or any bookstore out there.

When is this book out? Is it out? It’s out now.

It’s out now Yeah, it’s been out for about a month. Yeah.

Ah, there you go. All right. Awesome. It’s a it’s

a It’s a New York Times bestseller JJ. So that’s awesome. Oh,

that’s right. I saw that. Yes. Yes. I saw that Go you. That is no easy feat nowadays. No, not at all.

Very good. Alright, I appreciate you. Thank you so much for dropping by and dropping this wisdom and, uh, giving us all a new connection to make. Just yet another reason to take care of your gut.

Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips, and techniques you can incorporate into everyday life to ensure you look and feel great and are built to last. Check me out on Instagram, Facebook, and my website, JJVirgin. com. And make sure to follow my podcast at SubscribeToJJ. com so you don’t miss a single one.

single episode. And hey, if you’re loving what you hear, don’t forget to leave a review. Your reviews make a big difference in helping me reach more incredible women just like you to spread the word about aging powerfully after 40. Thanks for tuning in and I’ll catch you on the next episode.

Hey, JJ here. And just a reminder that the Well Beyond 40 podcast offers health, wellness, fitness, and nutritional information. That’s designed for educational and entertainment purposes only. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for, nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

If you have any concerns or questions about your health, you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional. Make sure that you do not disregard, avoid, or delay obtaining medical or health related advice from your healthcare professional because of something you may have heard on the show or read in our show notes.

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