Dr. Andrew Huberman

alcohol, astringent mouthwashes that kill your oral microbiome because all the dentists and periodontists are telling me, yeah, they'll make your breath fresh, but actually it's wrecking your gut microbiome and it's bad for, but so I take the probiotic.

You guys have amazing probiotics here.

And in a day, boom, it's done.

Now I didn't do a controlled clinical trial.

I don't know whether or not that was really what did it, but it's an interesting idea.

This I, we know for instance, that we have a distinct microbiome niches, different bacteria that live in our nasal passages and

on the surface of our eyes, on the surface of our skin, in the urethra, in essentially every orifice, mucous membrane, but everywhere in and around our body, and that these little microbiota are, provided they are supported, they do many things, but among them, the gut microbiome, which of course starts in the mouth, as the oral health episode describes, with a lot of protocols as well, the gut microbiome

when it's well supported, creates certain fatty acids that are the precursors or catalysts for the production of certain neurotransmitters in the brain.

And it is now oh so clear that enhancing the diversity of flora, of microbiota in the gut and mouth is great for the nervous system.

So much so that some of the studies on relief from certain neuropsychiatric conditions are being achieved through, and I know it's not pleasant, but microbiota transfer between individuals, so-called fecal transplants, which always makes me a little bit uncomfortable to think about.

Never had one.

But, you know, it's pretty interesting, you know, despite the discomfort of thinking about that process, at least for me, the...

The whole business of taking the gut microbiota from one individual that's not suffering from something and putting it into another individual and seeing relief from certain symptoms of given conditions is really compelling.

So, I think that we should all be thinking about ways to support our gut-brain access.

It's very...

clear that the best low-cost no supplement way to do that is going to be to consume one to four servings of some fermented food no beer doesn't count low sugar fermented foods I suppose beer does count but it comes with some other issues

such as, you know, kimchi or sauerkrauts or kefirs, or, you know, every culture seems to have its own probiotic, prebiotic foods, and that's going to be the best way.

And it's clear that it has immense benefit.

And then when you don't have access to those foods, doing things like taking a pill probiotic now and again is probably not a bad idea if you're traveling or you're sleep deprived.

The challenge with that sort of thing is that