Dr. Will Bulsiewicz

And it teaches us quite a bit where they discovered that actually most of the time it starts with gut symptoms.

By the way, this is the exact same thing that happens in Parkinson's disease.

where there's now research that Parkinson's disease starts with constipation and changes in the gut and then subsequently manifests with a neurologic health condition.

Yes.

And gastroenterologists, any gastroenterologist who's listening to the show right now is going to raise their hand and be like, yes, I agree.

100% of my patients that have Parkinson's disease are constipated.

They're all constipated.

And so is it that they develop Parkinson's disease and then they become constipated?

No, the answer is the opposite.

They become constipated first and then subsequently develop Parkinson's disease.

Two things with this.

Number one, if you are listening to this and you suffer with constipation, I don't want you to hear that you're going to develop Parkinson's disease.

The odds of that are very small.

There are some people that this happens, but the vast majority of people who suffer with constipation, they don't move on to have Parkinson's disease.

The point is in this brain-gut connection that exists, there can be the manifestation of disease in the gut and the manifestation of disease in the brain or in our mood, and they can be happening in a fashion that is actually they're connected to one another.

And how do we understand this connection today?

There's multiple ways.

that your gut is talking to your brain right now.

As you and I sit here and speak to one another, your gut is talking to your brain.

And some of the ways are with the production of chemicals, which are what we call bioactive.