Dr. Miguel Toribio-Mateas

I know you've talked about this with other guests.

Incidences of inflammation, maybe immunity issues and so on.

So there is an element of perhaps your body being so sensitive, your nervous system being so sensitive that there may be

higher neuroinflammation, so a little bit of inflammation in the nervous system, in the brain, that if you went to your GP and say, can you give me a result that I can look at and is relevant, it doesn't exist.

But when we look in a lab in a more precise kind of way, we know that subclinically, if you need to be at this kind of level, you're just a tiny little bit above that.

And it's to do with your body being in a situation of perceived threat throughout life, which can be because of this kind of early life experiences.

It could be because of later life experiences as well, because the stress,

The mechanism that deals with stress is not just shaped by your childhood, although childhood is very important.

It could be in adult life as well.

But if your body feels a little bit under threat, and it could just be because you're in an office where you are the only neurodivergent person that you know of, there may be others,

And that makes you feel under pressure to perform in a particular way.

And that is conditioning your brain and your nervous system to function in a way that makes it feel like you need to be prepared for danger.

So you're in a fight or flight situation.

And when that happens, you are going to release a number of different molecules in your bloodstream to prepare you for being traumatized physically.

to have a cat or a break or something.

So if you have a cat, you need to heal that wound very, very quickly so you don't bleed out.

So all of these molecules serve a purpose, like cortisol with stress and so on, but you couldn't just live high on cortisol all the time.

It's going to drain you.

You couldn't just live high on these molecules that are going to heal you all the time because they will drain you as well.

And so we do know that certain foods like blueberries or cocoa or pomegranate or cruciferous vegetables like broccoli or whatever, you know, have some ingredients in there, some active components that are going to make the brain and the nervous system work in a more regulated way.