This episode of Fast Talk is our third in a row discussing how diet impacts our performance, health, and mindset. But perhaps nowhere else does diet have a more profound impact than on the microflora of our digestive system—also known as the microbiome.
An astounding 70-80% of our immune system lives within the gut, one of many examples to show just how big an impact the microbiome has on our bodies. The composition of our microflora is constantly changing, and in recent decades researchers have discovered that this composition can impact everything from our brain to our immune system, and even our mood and how well our muscles adapt.
Everything is connected to the gut. And the biggest thing we can leverage to determine whether we have a healthy, balanced microbiome is our diet.
RELATED: Fast Talk Episode 207—Addressing Endurance Athlete Gut Issues
Here to tell us about this very important system today is Julie Ann Davey, ACNP-C, ANP-C, CFMP. Davey is a nurse practitioner with over 25 years of experience in healthcare and holds a faculty position educating future nurse practitioners. She is also a Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner and is currently enrolled in the Lifestyle Medicine Doctoral Program at FSU.
Davey owns a consulting practice helping clients get to the root cause of their symptoms through innovative clinical testing where she takes a holistic approach to healing any issues uncovered. She also teaches a bootcamp with Rupa University on Gut Health and the GI MAP test. In addition, she has a mentorship program for practitioners interested in learning more about gut health, advanced stool testing, and growing and scaling their practice. Education, whether it’s practitioners or patients, is Davey’s ultimate passion.
Davey talks with us about what the microbiome is; the many ways it impacts our bodies (you’ll be shocked how many symptoms can be traced back to the gut); how carbohydrates, fat, and protein impact the bacteria in our gut; and—especially important for this audience—how that goes on to affect athletic performance and recovery.
We also touch on how the microbiome can protect against intestinal permeability and support immune function, then finish with Davey’s suggestions on how to improve our microflora composition.
Joining Davey, we’ll hear from Dr. Mikki Williden, host of the Mikkipedia podcast on nutrition, health, and longevity; and Dr. Paul Laursen, owner of Athletica.ai and a highly respected researcher who has published many studies on sports nutrition.
So, bust out your prebiotics and probiotics and let’s make you fast!
References:
- Clark, A., & Mach, N. (2016). Exercise-induced stress behavior, gut-microbiota-brain axis and diet: a systematic review for athletes. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 13(1), 43. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1186/s12970-016-0155-6
- Fernandez-Sanjurjo, M., Fernandez, J., Martinez-Camblor, P., Rodriguez-Alonso, M., Ortolano-Rios, R., Pinto-Hernandez, P., … Lombó, F. (2024). Dynamics of Gut Microbiota and Short-Chain Fatty Acids during a Cycling Grand Tour Are Related to Exercise Performance and Modulated by Dietary Intake. Nutrients, 16(5), 661. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16050661
- Hughes, R. L., & Holscher, H. D. (2021). Fueling Gut Microbes: A Review of the Interaction between Diet, Exercise, and the Gut Microbiota in Athletes. Advances in Nutrition, 12(6), 2190–2215. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1093/advances/nmab077
Episode Transcript
Griffin McMath 00:00
Music. Hello and welcome to fast talk. Your source for the science of endurance performance. I’m your host, Dr Griffin McMath, here with Robert pickles and Trevor Connor this fall on fast talk, we’ve been focused on nutrition. This episode is our third in a row, talking about how our diet impacts our performance, our health and our mindset, but perhaps Nowhere does diet have a more profound impact than on the microflora of our gut, also known as the microbiome. 70 to 80% of our immune system lives within the gut, one of many examples to show just how big an impact the microbiome has in our bodies. The composition of our microflora is constantly changing, and in recent decades, researchers have discovered that the composition can impact everything from our brain to our immune system and even our mood and how well our muscles adapt. Everything is connected to the gut, and the thing we have influence over that has the biggest impact on whether we have a healthy, balanced microbiome is our diet. Here to tell us about this very important system today is Julie. Ann Davie. Julie is a nurse practitioner with over 25 years of experience in healthcare. She earned her graduate degree from Emory University, where she now holds a faculty position educating future nurse practitioners. Julie is also a certified Functional Medicine Practitioner and is currently enrolled in the lifestyle medicine doctoral program at FSU. Julie owns a consulting practice helping clients get to the root cause of their symptoms through innovative clinical testing, where she takes a holistic approach to healing any issues uncovered. Julie also teaches a boot camp with Rupa University on gut health and the GI MAP test. In addition, she has a mentorship program for practitioners interested in learning more about gut health, advanced stool testing and growing and scaling their practice education, whether it’s practitioners or patients, is Julie’s ultimate passion. Julie is going to talk to us about what the microbiome is, the many ways it impacts our bodies. You’ll be shocked how many symptoms can be traced back to the gut, how carbohydrates, fat and protein impact the bacteria in our gut, and especially important for this audience, how that goes on to affect our performance and recovery. We’ll touch on how the microbiome can protect against intestinal permeability and protect immune function, and then finish with Julie’s suggestions on how to improve our microflora composition. Joining Julie, we’ll hear from Dr Mickey willadin, host of the mycopedia podcast on nutrition, health and longevity, and Dr Paul Larson, the owner of athletica.ai, and a highly respected researcher who has published many studies on sports nutrition. So bust out your prebiotics and your probiotics, and let’s make you fast.
Rob Pickels 02:36
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of fast talk. I’m your host, Rob pickles, and I am here with the A team. We have Griffin, we have Trevor, and we have our expert for today, who is Julie Ann Davy. And we’re gonna be talking about the microbiome, which is a topic that is, I think, near and dear to the hearts of a lot of people on the fast talk staff. So let’s get ready for a good episode.
Griffin McMath 02:57
I’m so excited to have you, Julie, thanks for joining us.
Julie Ann Davey 03:00
Thank you so much for having me. This is obviously my favorite topic, so I’m excited to be here. So
Griffin McMath 03:05
today, just like Rob said, talking about the science behind the microbiome and its relationship with endurance performance, seeing that gut health is such a huge topic, I thought we’d start by setting some things straight, really making sure we’re all coming from the same frame of reference. Can you kick us off by helping us understand, what do we mean when we say microbiome? Yeah, sure.
Julie Ann Davey 03:25
So the gut microbiome really kind of refers to this community, these trillions and trillions of microorganisms that live in the GI tract that basically call the GI tract home. And there are actually a fun fact, there are actually significantly many more microbes in the gut than there are cells in the human body. In fact, it’s estimated that there are 10 times more microbial cells than human cells. So that’s really all we mean when we say gut microbiome. It’s all of these organisms that live in our gastrointestinal tract.
Griffin McMath 03:58
So just from the quantity that you’re talking about here. Obviously this is a very large topic, but why is this so important, and why are people so more interested in it today than even a decade ago?
Julie Ann Davey 04:09
Yeah, great question. So you probably have heard that our gut is kind of connected to everything, every system in the body, every organ, and you’ve also probably heard the statement that all disease begins in the gut, and so that’s kind of through research over the years, that’s kind of really what we’re finding out, that everything sort of at a foundational level, or at a root level, kind of comes back to the gut. So it is really important to look at the gut microbiome to kind of understand what’s going on underneath the surface, and that can really give us a lot of answers. But this microbiome, as we were mentioning, is again composed of trillions of organisms. These are things like bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, and it’s extremely important to have a diverse mix, so to speak, of organisms in. The gut that leads to health and wellness, and when we don’t have a good balance, that leads to something that’s often referred to as dysbiosis, and that can lead to a host of chronic conditions.
Trevor Connor 05:12
So something I just want to pipe in with quickly, because this was kind of an eye opener for me. One of my thesis advisors, she was studying rice and beans, but particularly their impact and the microbiome. And so she was doing microbiomic studies, and I remember going into one of her group meetings, and they had on the wall this big chart of an analysis of all the bacteria from a particular study. And this piece of paper was probably six feet wide, with all these tiny little colored boxes all over it, and there were just 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of different colored boxes to show the impact of this particular dietary intervention that they were doing on the gut microbiome. And what caught my attention is, oh, my God, this is complex. We’re not talking just a couple types of bacteria. This is something that fills a wall with tiny, tiny little boxes, which makes it very, I have to believe very, very hard to really fully grasp the impact that diet and other things have on this system.
Rob Pickels 06:10
And Julie, I want to expand on something that you mentioned, because it kind of opened my eyes. Oftentimes, when we talk about the microbiome, just like Trevor is now we talk about the bacteria side of things. But you pointed out there are other organisms that are in the gut as well. And I sort of always forget that maybe there’s more than just bacteria that creates a healthy environment. Is that true, or should we only have bacteria in our gut and sort of these other I’ll call them pathogens, these viruses and parasites, they are always a negative thing. What’s the real situation? Yeah, that’s
Julie Ann Davey 06:41
a great question. I don’t think they’re always a negative thing. It’s really just all about balance. So I’ll give you kind of an example. I work with patients day in and day out on their gut health on I do a lot of comprehensive stool testing, and often we’ll have a stool test that we’re looking at together. I’m looking at with a patient, and let’s say we’re looking at their commensals, which are their good bacteria, and they’re overgrown, and, you know, their levels are high. And so they’ll ask me, Well, isn’t that a good thing? You know, these levels of good bacteria, they’re high. That must be a positive thing. And so I’m always explaining actually, that’s, that’s not the case. We want this really, you know, good, healthy balance. We don’t want them to be too low, and we don’t want them to be overgrown. So that’s kind of one example of what you’re referring to. But then also, there are certain bacteria that we call opportunistic bacteria. Now these are in everyone’s system. You know, they’re in our bodies, but again, we want to keep them sort of at lower levels, and when there is an opportunity that is right for them to get overgrown. Maybe it’s, let’s say someone doesn’t have enough stomach acid, and their stomach acid is low, and that allows for these bacteria and other microbes to get overgrown, then that’s not a healthy thing, but they’re there. They’re part of the ecosystem. They’re part of the balance. So it doesn’t mean that just because we have, you know, some that would be considered pathogenic, that is normal and healthy. That’s not a bad thing, as long as they stay in the right balance.
Trevor Connor 08:08
So the other thing that’s really interesting, I would love to hear from you, diet has a huge impact on the composition, doesn’t it? It can have a quite dramatic change quite quickly. Yes, absolutely.
Julie Ann Davey 08:19
And what’s really cool, and I think sometimes people don’t necessarily know or are aware of, is certain things that we eat. Let’s just take fiber. For instance. We have these bacteria in our gut that actually break down and ferment the fiber to produce beneficial compounds, things like short chain fatty acids that are really important for maintaining inflammation, like lower levels of inflammation in the body, for maintaining our gut lining and barrier and also for keeping our immune system strong. So yes, you are absolutely right. Diet is huge. Diet is very important. But I think sometimes we don’t even understand the impact of the things that we eat and what this balance in our gut of different microbes actually how that works with the food to produce some really great things like short chain fatty acids.
Trevor Connor 09:08
So Julie, one of the things that we wanted to ask about when we’re talking about the importance of the microbiome is the dramatic impact it can have on our whole body. And I know people who study the microbiome talk a lot about the gut brain axis, because they are finding that the microbiome can actually have a huge impact and even our mental state. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yes.
Julie Ann Davey 09:30
So there is something, as you just referred to, called the gut brain axis, and this is this communication system between our gut and our brain. It’s a network of nerves, and they’re constantly communicating. And what we’re finding is that our gut affects our mood, it affects stress responses, it affects cognitive function. And there are actually certain microbes that produce neurotransmitters, things like serotonin and GABA, and these are really, really important. Mood regulation. In fact, some people may not know this, but the majority of serotonin is actually synthesized in our gut. About 90 to 95% of serotonin that we make in our body is actually produced in the gut. So if you have dysbiosis, if you have poor gut health, then again, you’re likely not going to be producing enough neurotransmitters, enough serotonin, and so it’s very common to have some of those mood disorders or mental health disorders. The other thing is, again, when we have this dysbiosis, we know that research shows that that is linked to things like anxiety, depression, even cognitive decline. This is also thought to be maybe partly due to these inflammatory pathways and this alteration in this neurotransmitter function. So one thing that I see often is I see a lot of h pylori when we’re doing comprehensive stool testing. And a lot of these pathogens like H Pylori that we can find on stool testing do cause some inflammation in the nervous system. And so I often see those clients that I have with h pylori will report experiencing anxiety or having a history of anxiety or mood swings. That’s a very common thing that I see. So it’s kind of cool when you’re, you know, able to have some type of testing and you’re able to kind of connect the dots with how the patient feels and what you’re actually finding kind of hard data that you’re finding on testing, and
Trevor Connor 11:22
if I remember correctly, they’ve actually done studies where they’ve taken people who are depressed or have high levels of stress, put them on probiotics and seen benefits Correct? Yes,
Rob Pickels 11:32
that’s impossible. There’s absolutely no way your intestines talk to your brain. It just it doesn’t happen. Guys, I don’t know what you’re talking about. No, I kid, I kid I
Trevor Connor 11:41
thought 90% of your motivation and your brain function was related to your
Rob Pickels 11:46
90% of my motivation when I’m writing is, what am I going to eat when I get back? So in that aspect, yes, there’s a huge connection. We
Griffin McMath 11:54
can’t understate the importance of the gut brain access. Here to talk more about that is Dr Paul Larson.
Dr Paul Laursen 12:01
Far as I’m aware, they often call the gut the second brain. I think there’s still so much more that we need to know, but more and more is coming to the fray every day on this. And the last thing I was reading on this with respect to the gut and the microbiome and its impact, and that was just basically talking about how stress in itself. So stress in your life, Chris, don’t forget. You know, stress can come in so many different forms, whether it’s too much exercise stress and the over trained athlete, emotional stress, nutritional stress, all of this actually goes and the brain itself can feed back to the gut and manipulate the microbiome to then go and impact, you know, the immune system and cause various different ailments. So again, it’s kind of from a talking, really a little bit about a holistic sort of standpoint. But there’s just not this. You know, we often look at these areas as very isolated, and the more I kind of stick around, the more I see that they’re very much talking to one another, and it’s very interrelated. Again, I think it’s a fascinating area, and you want to take care of absolutely everything, take care of the stress of your life and take care of your gut, make sure you’re consuming foods that are going to be helping your microbiota and not hindering it.
Rob Pickels 13:16
You know, Julie, I’d love to hear you touch on testing before there’s a problem, to make sure that things are in a good place and maybe make some good modifications. And then also testing after there’s a problem, right? And I think that I kind of look at this almost like I do my lawn, which, if you look at my lawn, it’s really not that nice, right? But if you have nice green, healthy grass that’s well fertilized, well watered, well maintained, and it’s a very strong ecosystem, then it helps block out weeds and other things that could be growing in there that are undesirable, so to say. And I’m sure that the gut microbiome is exactly the same. Yes,
Julie Ann Davey 13:53
great illustration there. So I always tell people, there is really, if we’re looking at testing, and we’re talking about comprehensive stool testing to get sort of a look underneath the surface as to, you know what’s going on. There’s really not one person on the planet that would not benefit from that type of testing, right? I often work with people who come in that aren’t really having a lot of issues. They just want to optimize their health and wellness. So you know more from a preventative standpoint, which is kind of what you’re referring to. But the more information we have, let’s say, then the better we are equipped to create a personalized plan or protocol for someone just to optimize everything. So I think that you can never go wrong doing that. And it’s actually recommended with stool testing that you test your microbiome about every one to two years, even if you’re not having any issues. Because, again, things can creep up. You know, we live in a very toxic world really. You know, our environment, some things that we can’t really control that do affect our microbiome, they’re going to be changes over time. And so when we can get some information and start. Start to head things off before they become a big problem, then that’s always beneficial. And then going a little bit deeper into your question around, okay, well, what if it’s not preventative, like, what if someone is having some issues? What might be some things that we would want to test for if you’re having, you know, XYZ issues? Well, first I would say, you know, kind of the obvious, we always think, Okay, well, if I’m having a gut issue, I must have some digestive symptoms, right? That is not always the case, but the most common things that we see are constipation, diarrhea, bloating is huge. A lot of people complaining of bloating, gas, reflux, abdominal pain, things like that. So if you’re having those type symptoms on a regular basis, not just every now and again, then there’s probably something off balance. There probably is something that needs to be addressed that can be optimized. So I would encourage you, if you have any of those issues, to certainly get tested. Now, there are also some what I just like to call extra GI or extra gut manifestations of an underlying gut issue. And that would be things like first just thinking about that gut brain connection. So if you are having anxiety, depression, mood swings, things like that, then there may be something off balance in your gut. But some other things that people generally don’t think about in relation to the gut would be things like skin issues. You know, there is a gut skin connection, right? Our skin is our largest organ. It’s one of the ways that our body tries to detox. So a lot of times when we’re having skin breakouts and things are showing up in the skin, our body is sort of like, you know, saying, hey, there’s a problem. You know, you need to look a little bit deeper. Something’s going on here. So we see that a lot with things like acne, eczema, psoriasis. So if someone’s experiencing any of those issues, then there very well may be an underlying gut issue. In fact, I see that a lot in patients with Candida overgrowth, a lot of times that manifests in the skin, and then, just to kind of keep going with like some other things that someone may experience that’s pointing back to the gut, things like fatigue, brain fog, lack of focus, even things with our joints, joint pain. I do see often joint pain from either inflammation, some of these bacteria that can get overgrown cause a lot of inflammation, as do parasites. Often I see joint pain with parasites. It could even be something like maybe someone has anemia and they’re not sure why they’re anemic. Some just giving you an example, some parasites feed on red blood cells, and that can cause anemia. Also, you can have low iron levels with that bacteria I mentioned, called H Pylori, a weakened immune system. Maybe someone’s getting sick a lot, about 70 to 80% of our immune system is sort of housed or lives in our gut lining. Another thing that I see is hormone imbalances. You know, especially with females, their hormones, they’re having all of these hormonal symptoms. Things seem to be out of balance. Often that points to a gut issue. And then lastly, I would say weight. So someone who’s having difficulty losing weight. We know that studies show that dysbiosis plays a major role in weight gain, as does this low level inflammation. And so I know that was a lot of things to take in, but if you are experiencing any of those symptoms or issues that I mentioned, you may very well have an underlying gut issue. So I would encourage you to explore that a little bit further, and
Trevor Connor 18:22
I know we need to move over to the impact of the microbiome on exercise and performance. But before we go, there just one last question I wanted to ask you, because I remember working with my old advisor, and this was Dr Elizabeth Ryan up at Colorado State University. Something she used to bring up is probiotics. If anybody’s listening to this and going, damn I really need to do something about the bacteria in my gut. Something Dr Ryan always said to us is, the issue with probiotics is, your gut bacteria composition can change quite dramatically in 24 hours. So you can sort of manage it with probiotics, but you have to take a lot every single day, which gets very expensive. And she used to say, ultimately, if you care about the health of your gut microbiota, you have to handle it with dietary changes. What’s your feeling about that?
Julie Ann Davey 19:08
Yeah, absolutely. I actually just had a similar comment or question come up in my mentorship group. The question was, if we give probiotics, and, you know, we sort of make some headway with repopulating the gut with some beneficial bacteria. If we withdraw those probiotics, is the gut gonna go right back to kind of where it was? And I thought that was a great question, because probiotics are great and they’re needed, right? We wanna have healthy levels of these beneficial bacteria. But sometimes I do think we can get into this thought process that, oh, I can just take probiotics and everything’s great. And you’re right. It can become expensive. It’s something that you know, if you don’t modify anything else, yes, you’re going to probably, if you want that benefit, have to continue to take them long term. But what I want to point out is one of the most important things there is to really work on the terrain. So if. We don’t work on sort of the, you know, the terrain of the gut, then it doesn’t really matter how many probiotics you give, they’re only going to be good for the time that you’re giving them. So what I mean by that is, let’s work on the gut lining. Let’s work on how much fiber are you taking in? What are your inflammation levels in the body like? Because if you have a lot of inflammation and you’re not, you know, feeding those good microbes with things like fiber and polyphenols, then you’re not going to have a good diversity and good levels of these probiotics or healthy bacterial strains. So hopefully, that made sense. I
Griffin McMath 20:37
could not agree more with that statement. And also, because when people hear, Oh, take probiotics, that always worries me a little bit, because it’s like, wait, because you need to know what you need to take based on what your body needs. And you can’t just look at your belly and say, Oh, I think I need these particular strains. You need proper testing to know. So if someone goes out Trevor to your point and just picks and chooses any old probiotics, or just grab something off the shelf, or grab something on Amazon and starts taking it first off, that’s not meant to be something like a vitamin d3, of k2, something that you’re taking on in an ongoing basis, that’s supposed to be a targeted approach, that I don’t wanna call it like a band aid, but it’s supposed to serve a certain purpose for a certain period of time. And then these changes, like what Trevor’s talking about with diet, what you’re talking about with lifestyle and the way that we, you know, make sure our tight junctions are actually tight, that our intestinal permeability isn’t permeable. Then that’s the stuff that you focus on with lifestyle that maintains it all the time. These probiotics are really just meant to be taken off the bench as short term players when it comes to supplementation or in situations where you really need it, because a testing says this is what’s happening in your gut, specifically. Otherwise, if you just throw any old probiotic off the shelf, how do you know you’re actually doing what needs to be doing or not even causing more harm, considering
Rob Pickels 21:53
that we’re endurance sports, exercise, focus, performance, podcast, it’s funny to me that we keep kicking those questions down the road, and I think that that just illustrates how important general health and wellness are. And so I have one more, and then maybe we’ll move on to the exercise stuff that all our listeners want to hear about. And that is, you know, Julie, we’re talking a lot about testing, about manipulating the microbiome. Is this an if then situation? You do a test, you say, oh, gosh, you’re a little bit low in X, Y and Z. You need more kimchi in your life, because we know that kimchi increases this but you don’t necessarily need more fiber, because we know that fiber does these over here, or is the recommendation always. You should be having more fiber. You should be having more fruits and vegetables? You should be having more, you know, a very general to get a broad spectrum. Great
Julie Ann Davey 22:45
question. I think when we’re talking about things like fiber and polyphenols from fruits, things like that, and probiotics from our food, you really can’t go wrong. I mean, that’s the natural way to get these things right. And when we think about, you know, supplementing, that’s just like the name it’s for supplementation, to supplement a healthy diet. It’s not, you know, these supplements, even, like probiotics, aren’t necessarily meant to be taken in place of it’s to add to an already healthy diet. So fiber, you know, probiotics in the diet, polyphenols, those are going to be healthy for generally, most everyone. Now where you know the personalization comes in is when you’re able to get testing, like a comprehensive stool test, and you can say, you know, I may have someone who has commensals, meaning good bacteria that are overgrown, and we don’t even give any probiotics initially. So it’s all about kind of taking the whole picture into account when we can kind of look beneath the surface and then make that personalized protocol and approach for that patient. So hopefully that answered your question.
Griffin McMath 23:50
All right, so I love that we have this foundation here for the connection between the microbiome and our overall health. And I think you made a really great point about how the microbiome functions in a healthy state, and then a whole laundry list of examples of what we might see even up to our head, right if we’re feeling depressed or distracted and recognizing it’s actually not all in our head could actually be in our gut. So let’s take some of these examples and move over specifically to our endurance athletes and the connection between our microbiome and our ability to perform, perform our best to recover. Let’s dive in here and really have an understanding of that scientific connection between the gut microbiome and the endurance athlete. Can we start maybe with the microbiomes impact on energy metabolism? Yes,
Julie Ann Davey 24:38
like I said, these are all great questions. I love all of these questions. As far as energy metabolism, there are certain compounds called short chain fatty acids. I mentioned these a little bit earlier. One of those, specifically that we hear a lot about is butyrate. There are others, propionate, acetate. Those are other short chain fatty acids now that is a direct source of energy. Energy for the colon cells, and it sort of serves as this immediate source of energy and propionate, just so, you know, can actually enter the liver and be used for gluconeogenesis, which aids in maintaining stable glucose levels. So, you know, that can be really helpful there. But also short chain fatty acids help to influence the release of hormones that regulate our appetite and our energy balance, things like GLP, one which we hear a lot about nowadays, but this, you know, helps with supporting efficient energy use and also preventing unnecessary energy storage. As fat also enhanced fat oxidation. So short chain fatty acids are thought to improve fat oxidation, which provides more of a sustained source of energy, especially during exercise. And so that can be particularly helpful and advantageous for endurance athletes. But that’s really sort of in a nutshell how the microbiome impacts energy metabolism.
Trevor Connor 26:00
So something I found interesting, very excited to hear your response to all this, because I’m just basing this on two studies I read that I will put in the show notes, because they were really fascinating studies on the microbiome and its impact on exercise. But both these studies talked about the fact that a short chain fatty acids, you know, anybody listening, is going well, that’s fatty acids, but they actually have a big impact on our ability to use glucose, on our ability to form glycogen. So it’s a fatty acid, but it has impact on our glucose metabolism. And what I found interesting in both studies that I hope you can talk more to is they showed that athletes often move towards a very high, simple carbohydrate diet that’s low on fiber, because fiber can affect their digestion, you know, give them some digestive issues. But the problem is just eating simple carbohydrates and avoiding the non digestible carbohydrates seems to impact the ability to form short chain fatty acids. So do we have this correct? And what’s your thoughts on this? Yes,
Julie Ann Davey 26:55
you are absolutely correct. And I do see this a lot in as you just mentioned avoiding fiber because it can cause some digestive issues, maybe some digestive upset. But it is so important, because these bacteria ferment the fiber that we eat to produce these short chain fatty acids. So super, super important. And I would say, you know, to someone who is really shying away from that, try and just start to incorporate some fiber extremely, extremely slowly, and let your body sort of get used to that and adapt to that, and sort of, you know, try and work your way up a bit that, to me, is the best, safest, easiest way to do that, because it is extremely important this fiber, you know, plays that really crucial role in ultimately, those short chain fatty acids being formed,
Rob Pickels 27:43
right? And I think at this point, you know for endurance performance, we pretty much know that taking in more calories is probably going to improve performance. And like Trevor said, it’s very easy to default to a carbohydrate beverage or a gel, something that’s known and measured. Oh, I have my exact 60 grams of carbohydrate right here, right? The company did the math for me. I just got to rip open this package and eat it. But we know that that is not the best fueling strategy for everyone. In fact, it’s probably not a healthy strategy for anybody out there. And so this is a way that, hey, eating real food can support, not only from just the carbohydrate that you’re ingesting, but also through these other metabolic pathways that we’re talking about. And I do think that when people are consuming fiber during exercise, hey, we still need to make some appropriate choices, right? Like maybe chomping on some celery is not the right thing on your bike ride. But oftentimes, when we have, say, things made out of oats or other grains, Trevor, you’re not a huge grain person, but you know, there is fiber in almost all of these real foods that we’re consuming, right? And so I think that when we talk about taking in more fiber, it doesn’t necessarily mean the highest fiber items out there.
Julie Ann Davey 28:51
Yep, you know, if you’re eating like raw vegetables, kind of like you mentioned, and you’re not used to that, your guts probably not going to like it initially, especially because it’s not used to it. It has to sort of get acclimated to higher levels of fiber and be able to, you know, break that down and process it properly. But another thing too, is if someone is really finding that, I mean, this is, you know, can go for athletes or not, but if someone is finding that, it’s hard to get more fiber in, and, you know, they want to add some fiber to something like a shake or a smoothie. You can add some fiber, like in small amounts. That’s going to be beneficial, too. That is an area that I would recommend, you know, supplementing in and that’s going to be helpful, really, for anyone. That’s not especially if you go low and slow, it’s not going to be harmful. Yeah, one thing
Rob Pickels 29:36
that I want to bring up, I don’t know that our listeners, we don’t talk about short chain fatty acids all that often we do every once in a while, but something we talk about all the time is lactate and the microbiome has a role there as well. I have a research paper. I think this is from 2022 from Kate sales, and they bring up, and this is cited in a lot of places, not just this Kate sales paper, that there is a particular strain called a Valen. Atypica, or at least something close enough that you can look it up, and this is a strain that can actually metabolize lactate, right? We’re producing a whole bunch of lactate during exercise, and this gut bacteria is able to oxidize that lactate and create propionate, which is, again, a short term fatty acid, like we talked about, right? And so we talk a lot about lactate shuttle hypothesis and how we’re able to utilize lactate? Well, this is another way that we’re able to use lactate as a positive source of energy within the body.
Griffin McMath 30:28
Oh, Rob, is it? V, e, i, L, L, O, N, E, L, L, A,
Rob Pickels 30:33
sure is.
Griffin McMath 30:34
Ah, now I see again, all I could start thinking of was like Villanova. Like this? Villanova?
Rob Pickels 30:39
Yeah, good bacteria down there.
Griffin McMath 30:42
Yeah, no, I do know what strain you’re talking about now, okay, yeah, there is a study about how the higher abundancy of that and two other strains do benefit the athlete, especially when it comes to production of metabolites, maintenance of the intestinal barrier, even the immune system, and energy utilization. So that’s fantastic. Yeah, there
Rob Pickels 31:02
was a study I saw that they had isolated a particular strain from an Olympic weightlifter. And if you think about that, they probably isolated this strain from their feasts. I’ll just leave it there.
Griffin McMath 31:16
At this point in the conversation, Julie had to go teach a class before we were able to get to the effects of proteins and fat in the microbiome. So Trevor and I continued the conversation and full
Trevor Connor 31:26
disclosure, fully recognized. Julie is the expert here. I only play one on TV, but I’m going to give some of the research. So yeah, we talked about the impact of different carbohydrates, particularly non digestible carbohydrates like fiber on the microbiome. But I think for athletes, we need to talk a little bit about protein and fat, because there were some really interesting things in the research there, absolutely.
Griffin McMath 31:48
And I think because there’s so much emphasis on protein for endurance athletes, it’s almost like that has to almost be one of the biggest parts of the conversation. And with so many people prioritizing, sometimes an inappropriate ratio with a priority on higher protein that sometimes becomes so out of balance that it leads to a lot of GI upset. And you know, one of the signs people experiences that is a lot of gas. So I do think this is a really important sub topic for us to dive into. Well, it
Trevor Connor 32:17
is important because athletes are going to consume more protein, and what they show is, when you are consuming high levels of protein, about 10% is going to ferment in your gut. And as you said, that can lead to GI issues that can also have a negative impact in the microbiome. So I’m just going to share at a high level some of the things that I saw in the research. One was the types of protein are really important, and the biggest negative impacts you saw were from supplements, so powdered forms of protein. There was a lot of research on soy protein that showed really negative impacts on the gut microbiome. Also casein and whey, which comes from dairy, where they showed that when you are eating whole food forms of protein, you don’t see nearly the same sort of negative impacts. The other thing and surprise, surprise, when you consume the protein with fiber, you really see most of those negative impacts go away. So another case for fiber is really important for the health of the gut microbiome. But another thing that they’ve been showing in the research is a connection. Not only is there a connection between the gut and the brain, there’s a connection between the gut and our muscles, and the microbiome actually influences our muscles, anabolic ability. When the muscles are damaged, their ability to repair and actually come back stronger and bigger. I
Griffin McMath 33:29
think Trevor too. When you talk about these powdered protein supplements, so many people react to whey protein more than people understand that they’re getting this GI upset, not realizing it’s actually the whey protein. And then a lot of these formulations, I mean, they’ve improved. You know, in 2024 there, a lot of them are better. But historically, these were not always created very intelligently. It would just be, here’s the protein, not all these other things to bring balance into this powdered formula that someone would be taking in, especially someone who’s not just, you know, taking protein here and there to help supplement their diet, but someone who’s taking a large amount of this to compensate for the training session and the races that they’re doing, so really understanding that all protein powders are not created equal. If you are reacting, and it’s something that maybe you have to do to add to your diet, then you really need to understand, is this source of protein, right for you as well. They’re not all created equal, and many more people react away than they realize.
Trevor Connor 34:26
I think a really important message that we have here with the microbiome is a lot of people think, well, carbs are carbs, proteins, protein, fats, fat. But when it comes to the microbiome, it knows the difference, and different types of carbohydrates are gonna have very different impacts on the microbiome. Different types of protein are going to have a different impact. And that’s a good segue to fat, where a lot of the original research on fat and the microbiome was very negative, but they were really studying a fairly unhealthy Western diet with a lot of saturated fats. And what you’ve seen is, yes, saturated fats tend to have a very negative impact on the micro. Biome, Omega six polyunsaturated fats seem to just kind of be neutral, neither negative or positive, from what I read, but what you are seeing is a very beneficial impact of omega three fatty acids on the gut microbiome.
Griffin McMath 35:14
I think something else that I’ve found over the years is you talked about originally, all this negative conversation about fats all those years ago and how that’s changed now. I think something that also made such a difference in that was when people started to realize the quality of the fats that they were using, the source of where it came from, how those fats were being stored, especially if they were not Whole Foods, based when they got into the body. And so it became really difficult to identify the independent variables, because the quality of the fats that we used to ingest or that we used to prioritize just wasn’t part of the conversation. It was just get it in there, no matter how, like you said, the microbiome knows you can tell the difference. And so now we’re really starting to understand the quality when it comes to we actually partially had this conversation last night in another podcast recording, but especially when you choose to get your fats from whole food sources, that’s something that can go rancid in Whole Foods. And when you are ingesting rancid fats, you’re actually introducing it’s not like, oh, it just doesn’t provide benefit. No, you’re actually introducing harm to the system at that point. So I think that’s just a conversation again, when you’re looking at this and you’re saying Whole Foods, this is an area where quality does matter. And
Trevor Connor 36:21
the last thing I want to bring up and Griffin, you can decide later whether you want to keep this in the episode or not. I always look at things from an evolutionary biology standpoint, and there’s been some recent research pointing out the fact that in ancient times and hunter gatherer times, we didn’t have refrigeration. You couldn’t just go to the store and buy something fresh. You know, if you had a hunt in the next few days of hunting or gathering or whatever are unsuccessful, you’re going to be eating some foods that aren’t fully fresh anymore, that have started to ferment, which is a nice way of saying starting to go a little rancid. So they were eating a lot of fermented food. And there is a belief, and I’ll give you one explanation for this, that having some fermented food in our diet. I’m not saying eat rancid meat, but there are a lot of good fermented foods out there are really beneficial for our health and for our micro flora. And one example here, we’re only just recently starting to do the research on the benefits of vitamin k2 which is also called menaquinones. And menacquinones are produced entirely by bacterial fermentation. You can really only get it from eating fermented food,
Griffin McMath 37:21
I really appreciate the fact that you distinguished the difference there. We’re not talking rancid, we’re talking fermented so don’t just start leaving stuff on your counter saying, like I’m bringing us back to the glory days of our evolution, and eating something is nature intended. Please don’t do that. Don’t
Trevor Connor 37:36
do that. And I’ll give you a little hint of one that’s a little more enjoyable than leaving meat on your counter to rot. Dark chocolate is a fermented food
Griffin McMath 37:45
Trevor. Are you saying I can just snack on dark chocolate to improve my microbiome? Health could be are you saying that because it’s also Halloween today, so we could really, you know, treat ourselves.
Trevor Connor 37:56
I am sitting here drinking a cacao beverage with zero sugar in it.
Griffin McMath 38:01
Well, that’s maybe a great spot to wrap up this particular point. Please do not leave meat on your counter and try to do it the old school way here, just pick up a bar of high quality dark chocolate with zero added sugar. Now let’s get back to the original interview with Julie. So something
Trevor Connor 38:16
I want to bring up here is the fact that exercise, particularly when you’re doing very long training or hard training, can be very damaging to the gut. You know, they’ve shown that it can increase intestinal permeability that allows a lot of bad bacteria, particularly LPs, to get into our systems, which can lead to mild endotoxemia, which is not something you want, and that can really impact our training, impact our recovery.
Rob Pickels 38:44
Trevor, what’s LPs? Real quick, because I have no clue what you’re talking about,
Trevor Connor 38:47
lipopolysaccharide. Rob, you do know it?
Rob Pickels 38:51
Oh, no, I did it. I literally had no clue what you were talking about. I’m not a gut person. This is not my specialty. LPS
Trevor Connor 38:58
is a marker on the bad gram negative bacteria that you don’t want to get into your system. And our immune system has a whole lot of defense mechanisms that get activated when they detect LPs. So when LPS gets into our system, the immune system alarm bells go off. So here’s the question I have is, does the microbiota help with this? Can healthy bacteria prevent some of this?
Julie Ann Davey 39:25
So when we’re talking about you bring up a really great point around intestinal permeability, and we know that exercise is really important for having a diverse microbiome. However, if we over exercise and we put too much stress on the body. Stress is one of the ways that that intestinal permeability increases, basically. So, you know, the intestines should be permeable, right? There should be nutrients that kind of SEEP across that intestinal lining into the bloodstream, that give us our energy and things like that. But what happens is, when that. That intestinal lining becomes more permeable, a term we often refer to as leaky gut, or increased intestinal permeability. That is when those toxins, food particles, things like that, can seep out into the bloodstream and then cause this massive inflammation in the body. And so really, it’s about having good balance. Having good balance of bacteria helps to keep that intestinal lining in the right permeability, not too increased or not leaky, so to speak. That is really part of the picture, and really important. So again, I just want to say sort of something that you brought up is that putting too much stress on the body by over exercising is not good, right? It causes things like leaky gut or increased permeability. So there’s got to be a really good balance. There something
Trevor Connor 40:48
I’m just going to quickly add to that, because we’ve talked about this on the show before. When LPS gets into the system, the primary immune defense is to elevate a type of cell called th 17 cells. And there is research on endurance athletes showing elevated th 17 from training and just to understand how important it is to keep a healthy microbiome chronically elevated, th 17 has been shown to proceed every single autoimmune disease, heart disease and cancer. So this is something that we really want to protect our bodies against.
Griffin McMath 41:17
Let’s take a moment and hear from Dr Mickey willadin about how the microbiome can impact our immune system.
Dr. Mikki Willide 41:24
99% of the immune system is housed in the gut, right? And so in order to be healthy, we really need to focus on having an optimal gut microbiome, essentially, and how that looks for that everyone is really different as well, and the gut is really transient. What you eat really impacts on the presence of different gut microbes, but the reduction of inflammation is important. Having key nutrients is important to help keep a really healthy gut environment.
Griffin McMath 41:54
Trevor, I think when we talk about the context of what Julie was just mentioning with extreme exercise, I can hear Grant’s voice echoing from other episodes of saying, I can’t really do Grant’s voice, but you know, let’s just face it, what we did, this hurts your body. And he talks about cross. He’s like, it depends,
Trevor Connor 42:11
waiting for somebody to say that.
Griffin McMath 42:16
But this is true. And so when we talk about recovery and our microbiome. You know, Julie talks about like extreme exercise. Let’s face it, pretty much most endurance sports like that is extreme exercise that is extreme stress on the body. We talked about this in recording an episode last night with Dr Kresge, and just the stress of running and what that does to your tight junctions as you run, just that physical, mechanical stress on the body alone, let alone what’s happening biochemically or physiologically. And so when we look at those who may be at more risk for overtraining syndrome or injuries or other illnesses that coincide with the experience of an endurance athlete, it becomes even more important to look at having some of these more short term interventions that are targeted that we talked about earlier, such as probiotics. If you want to take that off the bench and say, Okay, it’s time for this. But again, knowing which ones you need, there is some really awesome research when it comes to things like over training syndrome, or these endurance athletes in recovery, and talking about a two week supplementation process, looking at recovery status, 24 hours, 72 hours, and the impact it has specifically on muscle damage. And so I think overall, this is such a huge topic that we can continue to dive in in so many episodes. We’ll definitely include this research in the show notes. But one of the reasons we want to say that it’s such a huge topic is circling back to the beginning. Julie gave a laundry list of before we even talk about endurance sports. Here are all the different things that could be happening with your body if your microbiome has gone astray. So if you throw in this additional extreme stressor, it acts like a wrench into the washing machine here. And so there’s a lot to think about, a lot of different aspects of your recovery, specifically that can be improved by intentionally looking into how can I optimize my microbiome and my gut health? So Julie, can you talk a little bit about beneficial strains? I’ve heard you talk about those a few times, and then not just knowing what they are, but is there a way we can find out? Do I have them in my gut and at what ratio? Yes,
Julie Ann Davey 44:16
absolutely. So I know we’ve talked a little bit throughout the episode about comprehensive stool testing. And so that’s really what’s going to give you the overall picture of where are these good and commensal bacteria in relation to where are some pathogenic or opportunistic bacteria. But we can certainly see these good, healthy commensal strains. And what’s great about that is this helps to personalize do you need probiotics? And if you do perhaps what probiotic strains are best for you and for your gut. So the first one that I would say is extremely important is one called facade bacterium protein CI, and this one is really known for being a big butyrate producer. Now remember, butyrate is a short chain fatty acid that helps to reduce inflammation. It helps. To support that gut barrier, the integrity of the gut barrier. So this can help with lowering inflammation in recovery. It can help with reducing fatigue in endurance athletes. So, really, really important. And one of my colleagues actually explains this particular bacteria when we see it on stool testing and it’s not existent, meaning there’s none at all. Let’s say in this person’s system, or in their gut, that generally means that there is a significant amount of inflammation. And she always describes it as if there’s inflammation at the party for Cali bacterium won’t show up. So that’s just kind of like an easy way to remember it. So when I see that one, inflammation is something that I’m, you know, always working on. The second one that I would say that we, I know you guys have probably heard about, we hear a lot about, is akermansia mucinophilia. And so this one is extremely important for maintaining gut barrier integrity and maintaining that mucus lining in the gut, also really important for metabolic health. It’s been associated with healthy levels, are associated with better weight management, with reduced inflammation. So that one’s extremely important. And then two more that I would say you probably have heard of, because these are in most of your general kind of standard probiotics. So Bifidobacterium is the first one. This one is actually really helpful in digesting complex carbohydrates and fiber that can help with sustained energy levels in your endurance activities and your endurance athletes, and it also helps to support immune function. So obviously, we’re all wanting to have the strongest and best immune system we possibly can right? And then the other one that is probably even more popular is lactobacillus. This one really helps to maintain the acidic environment in the gut and helps to prevent overgrowth of these harmful bacteria, and it does actually produce some short chain body acids that helps with nutrient absorption and helps to support the immune system. So I would say those four are probably four that are really important that we can test for, that we can see where are your levels, and really help to customize the approach. Okay,
Griffin McMath 47:04
so all of this being said, Julie, I really want to bring this back to you, to kind of take us home here. What are ways that someone can understand I need to go get help with my microbiome and my gut health. How can they monitor that, and what are concrete steps an athlete can do to improve their microbiome. Yeah, so
Julie Ann Davey 47:24
one thing that I always say is we have to be students of our own body, right? We have to pay attention because you know yourself better than anyone else. So start to really pay attention to that whole list of symptoms that I gave you that may not even be gi related. That may be extra gi related or extra gut manifested, right? Pay attention to any of those. If you are having those things consistently, then I would certainly explore getting your gut tested. And then I would say, you know, I’d love to give you about five or six different things that you can do to help support your gut. These are like free things that you can do. And I’m not going to talk about supplements. We already talked about probiotics and fiber, but just things that you can do to improve digestion overall. So the first one would be making sure that you are eating in a relaxed environment. So, you know, one of the things that we often do is we want to eat on the go, right? We’re running from place to place, and we’re just eating really quickly, that is not giving our parasympathetic nervous system time to activate. So the vagus nerve is part of the parasympathetic nervous system that is your rest and digest system. That’s what we want to be activated while we’re eating, because we’re going to digest our food much better, and we’re not going to have potentially, those symptoms that we talked about, like bloating, gas, things like that. Most of us walk around in a sympathetic state, right that fight or flight, and so if we’re kind of eating on the go and on the run, then we’re in that sympathetic state, and we don’t digest as well. The other thing that you can do to activate your parasympathetic nervous system right before you eat is just take some deep breaths. Just sit in a relaxed environment. Take some deep breaths, five deep breaths right before you eat. And I remember years ago, I had tons of gut issues. That’s really kind of why I started doing what I do, and figured out what my issues were through stool testing. But I really thought things like this, like deep breathing before you eat, taking time to eat in a relaxed environment, that they really didn’t make a difference. But I promise you, from someone who is not a believer to is now a believer, they do make a big difference. Also. It helps us to, you know, produce more digestive enzymes and stomach acid, which are really important for digesting our food. The other thing that you can do is make sure that you are chewing your food properly, 30 to 40 times each bite, which sounds like a lot, but if you are used to, you know, eating really fast, if you will just put your fork down between each bite, it sort of prompts you and your brain to slow down a little bit. And, you know, take those you know. 30 to 40 chews with each bite. The other thing that can be helpful is avoid drinking a lot of water or liquid with your meal that can dilute your stomach acid. And if you this is one of the most common things that I see in my clients, is low stomach acid. Low stomach acid can come from different bacteria that you might have overgrown in your digestive tract. It can also come from stress. Stress can cause low stomach acid. And so think about that, because if you don’t have enough stomach acid, you’re not going to digest your food, especially protein, and you’re not going to make enough digestive enzymes to digest your food. So extremely important, so water can kind of dilute that. So you want to make sure you’re not having tons and tons of water. The temperature of the liquid that you have can also matter if you’re consuming like ice cold liquids with your meals that kind of slows down digestion and can solidify some of the oils in your food. So that’s something to consider. And then, just even if you are feeling digestive issues, take a walk, just a walk, not a run. Take a walk after you eat, and that really helps with digestion. So those are just some tips that I wanted to give you, that you could do, like right now. You could start today and just see if they impact your digestion.
Griffin McMath 51:13
The ice water one is always really interesting to me. Not enough people realize that you’re not actually supposed to drink ice water
Rob Pickels 51:19
real quick, too. I think that the volume of water thing is interesting to me, because years ago, friend of the show Neil Henderson, mentioned that to me, I think we were eating together, and he’s like, Dude, you shouldn’t drink so much water while you eat. And I was like, What are you talking about? I’m thirsty. But now 15 years later, I’m finally finding out why I shouldn’t drink so much
Griffin McMath 51:38
so on the heels of these concrete tips that athletes can take on and get moving on today, like you said, for free, these are free things you can do. I think it’s time to wrap up and to say, okay, what are all of our take homes from this? What are we taking home from this conversation on the microbiome and endurance performance, and where are we at? So one of the best people to start this, I think, would be Rob. Rob. I know you have an interesting point to bring up with this as well. So Rob, why don’t you take away our takeaways?
Rob Pickels 52:06
Yeah, Griffin, my take home for the moment, actually is I reviewed a decent amount of research, not as much as some episodes, but definitely more than other episodes prior to this. And what I find really interesting is that there seems to be a very direct link between our microbiome and sort of downstream changes within our body, right? We can see improvements in mood. Oftentimes, we don’t necessarily understand exactly why that is, I don’t think, but when it comes to endurance performance, I do think that there’s a little bit of a gap in the middle of the research there where, hey, if we improve our gut microbiota, we know that we can improve metabolism of short chain fatty acids. We know that we can metabolize lactate, but we don’t necessarily know the exact improvement on performance for that. And there have been some study on mice models where they, like, say, injected acetate into a mouse and they’re like, Oh, my God, he swims for longer. And so great. There’s probably a performance improvement. But before I think that we can say, like, hey, improving this is going to increase your performance 2% I do think that we just need a little bit more research. And I’m sure that there’s something there. I just think our knowledge, you know, like our knowledge of the ocean. We know the ocean is there, but we don’t know much about it. And it’s the same thing here, where let’s get some interventional research on human subjects in terms of riding your bike faster. Julie, I’ll kick it to you if you have some take homes for our listeners. Yeah.
Julie Ann Davey 53:24
So I would say the biggest thing to remember and to think about, really in all situations, is it’s all about balance, right? Whether we’re talking about how much you exercise and stress you put on your body or the balance in your microbiome, everything is about having the right balance. And remember again, what I mentioned previously, that we have to be a student of our own body. So really, if you’re not paying attention to what’s going on, and you’re just busy all of the time, and you’re like, I don’t know, I don’t know what’s what, start to write things down. Start to pay attention to what you’re feeling. How often is this happening? And let that sort of guide you into do you need to look further? Do you need maybe some comprehensive stool testing? And again, if you’re just looking to improve performance, to improve overall wellness, you’re not going to be wrong to get tested, to look beneath the surface and to really get more information, to personalize what you’re already doing.
Trevor Connor 54:19
What I find really interesting about the microbiome is there were years particularly in sports nutrition, but even in all nutrition, where, when we studied our food, it was you ate something, then there were transporters in our gut that absorbed that. And we did a lot of research on the transporters. And once it was in our system, we looked at the impact on our system. And this whole microbiome was kind of something that was skipped over. And what I think we’re discovering now is what we have skipped over is huge, and answers so many questions that we couldn’t answer before. Like Julie, you mentioned, there was chronic pain that could never be explained that was related to the microbiome. Another example I’ll give of the importance of the micro. Microbiome, I get asked all the time, what’s the difference between complex carbohydrates and simple carbohydrates? Because they all get broken down to glucose and fructose. So who cares? Well, one of the answers that question that we touched on earlier is simple sugars like glucose and fructose, when you eat them as simple sugars have a negative impact on the microbiome, where the complex carbohydrates increase the diversity they’re usually consumed with fiber, which is great for the microbiome. And what you see when you consume the complex carbohydrates is an increase in those short chain fatty acids, which have a lot of health benefits. So that’s one of the big differences between just consuming a simple carbohydrate and a complex carbohydrate that I don’t think we talked a lot about several decades ago. So the microbiome. I mean, if you’re really focused on your health and proper nutrition, the microbiome just can’t be skipped over. So Griffin, take us out. You know, Trevor,
Griffin McMath 55:50
I think my take home has to do with recovery and the conversation about probiotics that was mentioned much earlier on how probiotics really isn’t something you just pick up off the shelf and you just take in an ongoing manner, because, well, probiotics are great, you should just be taking them and really understanding that that’s supposed to be a targeted approach and for an intentional time period, and its role during that time period of recovery after a pretty strenuous activity. So I think that’s my takeaway, is that when you consider something like probiotics, it should be targeted, and it should be for an intentional time frame that being said, Julie, it was such a pleasure to have you on today. Thank you so much for joining us. We love introducing you to our fast talk audience, and hope to see you on again sometime soon.
Julie Ann Davey 56:33
Yes, thank you so much for having me fun discussion,
Griffin McMath 56:37
and that was another episode of fast talk. Subscribe to fast talk wherever you prefer to find your favorite podcasts, be sure to leave us a rating and a review. The thoughts and opinions expressed on fast talk are those of the individual as always, we love your feedback. Join the conversation at forums dot fast talk labs.com tweet at us at fast talk labs, or head to fast talk labs.com to get access to our endurance sports knowledge base, our coach continuing education, as well as our in person and remote athlete services for Julie and Davey. Coach, Robert pickles coach. Trevor Connor, I’m Dr Griffin McMath. Thanks for listening. You.
