Josh (00:39.321) The gut is the epicenter of life and life itself wouldn't exist without it. Now today's guest is one of the world's most renowned gut specialists, experts, and researchers. He's a celebrity doctor listed in leading physicians of the world and America's top doctors. Back in 2017, he was awarded the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award by Marquis Who's Who in America. He's an international bestselling author who helped develop the very principles of functional medicine. Dr. Leo Gallon, thank you so much for being here today.
Leo galland (01:14.518) pleasure to be talking about the gun.
Josh (01:17.27) It is an amazing, amazing thing, is it not?
Leo galland (01:20.715) Yeah, I...
40 or 50 years ago, that as I was trying to improve people's nutrition, that if you could fix the gut, you didn't need intravenous nutrition. There were so many things that seemed to be centered in the GI tract. And so that's when I began studying the impact of the microbiome, before there was a term.
microbiome, you know, what's growing there? How does that affect digestion and absorption? How does it affect the immune system? How does it affect what happens in the gut and what happens outside the gut? And it's been really gratifying to me to see that become a topic in mainstream medicine. I mean, I remember maybe 25 years ago,
Gastroenterologists would say to patients of mine, there is no such thing as a leaky gut. Now you read about that term, which is not one of my favorites, is used in the New England Journal of Medicine to describe phenomena that are obviously related to gut toxins getting into the body and provoking abnormal responses.
Josh (02:26.319) Mm-hmm.
Josh (02:48.733) So why don't you like the term leaky gut? It sounds so simple and expletive.
Leo galland (02:54.406) Yeah, maybe it sounds a little too simple, but also people get confused about are things leaking out or are they leaking in? And of course, both can occur, but it's really about what's leaking in that we worry about. And aside from all its important functions in terms of digestion and absorption,
Josh (03:02.463) Right.
Leo galland (03:20.022) nutrients and elimination of waste. The gut has this other really essential function, which is its barrier function, and its immune function. So the barrier function is that it wants to be able to allow the absorption of what's needed, but keep out what's not needed. However, in the category of what's not needed, there are some things for which a little is needed,
because the gut is essentially a place where there's a low-grade chronic inflammation. And you need that, you need that little bit just to educate the immune system. Because two-thirds of the cells in your immune system are in the lining of the small intestine. And they leave there, they traffic, they circulate around the body, they bring what they've learned to other organs, and then they home back, they return back to the GI tract.
And that's a critical part of immune development. So it's the control of that border, that interface. And what's inside is actually a very foreign and toxic environment. Trillions of microbes, which if they got into your blood would make you really sick.
Josh (04:44.125) Now it's interesting to talk about leaky gut. You say leaking in versus leaking out. And most of the time, I'd say nearly 100% of the time it's referenced, it's things leaking out of the gut, getting into the body, leading to immune issues. You get, you know, undigested food particles and pathogens and endotoxins and all these things. So when you say leaking in.
Leo galland (04:59.735) Oh.
Leo galland (05:02.798) Well, when I said leaking in, I meant into the body. In other words, that space, which we call, that's our insides, that's really an external space. In other words, if you think about the tissues of your body, the human cells, that is external to your body. I mean, it's inside, but it's really an external space. It's kind of continuous.
Josh (05:06.392) Okay.
Josh (05:14.714) Hmm.
Leo galland (05:32.094) with the outside environment. I mean, it's an amazingly complex inner environment. The complexity is kind of like quantum physics meets rocket science at that level. And it's gotten, and I mean, part of the issue is the vast number of organisms that are there. And in addition to the trillions of bacteria, there are fungi,
Josh (05:32.274) Mm.
Leo galland (06:01.742) normally there and that play a role in the functioning. There are, there may be helminths, worms, and protozoa which can be a cause of disease but which people have lived with, you know, since the beginning of the human species and which have, can have a healing and protective role. And maybe the newest frontier are viruses.
Josh (06:29.233) Hmm.
Leo galland (06:30.702) there are about 35 times as many viral organisms in your GI tract as there are bacteria. Now, there are already more bacteria than there are human cells. So you then look at the vast number of bacteria, viruses that are present. And those viruses, most of them live in the bacteria. They're called bacteriophages.
call the bacterial species or they change their activity. And they have very little direct effect on humans, but they have a major role in helping to shape the bacteria that are present in your gut. And some of the things that we do nutritionally may have their effects on the gut by the way they impact bacteria.
through the, by the way, they cause the viruses to impact the bacteria. This, we're just at the beginning of trying to understand this. But two foods in particular have major effects there. One is oregano. Oregano silences a variety of these bacteriophages. Stevia does the opposite. You know, that's the non-nutritive natural sweetener. And which has some very interesting effects.
clinical studies, but stevia actually activates a wide range of bacteria fascias. And so using stevia as a substitute for sugar, sugar actually can directly cause a leaky gut. What is the stevia doing to the bacterial populations? How do we understand that? So it's this remarkably complex, rich,
environment which really consists of a set of ecosystems and communities that are interacting with each other and with the cells in your body and the interaction changes as you go down the GI tract. The environment of the cells lining the GI tract is different in different parts of the
Leo galland (09:00.386) that we're dealing with. One of the areas, one of the concepts that I came up with, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago, in thinking about organisms, the organisms that are there and the bacteria, and I just kind of made up a term called Alexander organisms. I was thinking about how the Macedonian army invaded and conquered a large part of the known world.
under the leadership of Alexander. Of course, he was 24 years old. He was one person. He didn't do it by himself. But the Macedonian army could not have done it without him because he, first of all, they were his father's army. So he had a history with them. Also, he just knew how to galvanize and organize them. Well, there are probiotic organisms that act like Alexander and they come in.
Josh (09:36.178) Mm-hmm.
Leo galland (09:58.142) and they begin to shape the communities that are present. And I think that is a major role of probiotics and prebiotics. It's not that, oh, this probiotic, this is a really good bacterium, so you should have it in your gut. It's what a successful probiotic does to all of the communities that are there. Sometimes,
Josh (10:17.235) Mm.
Leo galland (10:26.85) they can't establish a niche. And so they just pass through, they don't really take up residence. Sometimes even if they don't take up residence, they have effects that are very desirable in terms of balancing the activities of the different bacterial communities.
Josh (10:48.177) Very interesting. So it's a lot more going on in there. I mean, when your bacteria outnumber your cells 10 to one and your viruses are 35 times that, it's a 350 to one. I mean, the math is astonishing. You could argue, and I've said this for years now, but I think this is really adding layers to that cake, if you will, is that your pathology, or I shouldn't say pathology, that's a horrible word, your bacteria and your viruses, these...
What could be potential pathogens, these things that have benefits and negative effects, they help you heal you. They can also make you very sick. They are arguably as important as your very DNA.
Leo galland (11:25.514) In fact, 95% of the variability in DNA in your body comes from the bacteria that are present. And that's without even looking at the viruses. The number of genes in the human body, under 30,000, is fewer than the number of genes in a grain of rice. So how is it that we have?
We seem to be so much more complicated than rice. Do we know how to use our genes better? Or is there something else going on? Well, something else that's going on is the impact of the microbiome, which contains... We have 35,000 genes, the microbiome adds about 4 million. And over 95% of the chemicals that circulate in your blood originate with the microbiome.
Josh (11:58.249) Thanks for watching!
Leo galland (12:24.058) where they start. And you know they know this from studies with laboratory animals who have no microbiome. They're grown that way and they have very little, very few chemical circulators.
Josh (12:39.145) Hmm. That is fascinating. So the microbiome adds, because the genes of course, and their expression is four million genes added to the body outside of our normal, you know, 28 or 30,000. That's bizarre. You know, I was going to ask you about any, you know, fun facts. I'm a big fun fact guy, you know, fun fat cows have four stomachs, but this is probably the most fun fact I've ever heard. That is something else. So,
Leo galland (12:54.135) Yeah.
Josh (13:06.745) these interactions that we're having are microbiome. Let's go back to the roots. So I mean, right now there is a huge push for more C-section births, for more formula feeding and bottle feeding. Can you talk about the microbiome and how it develops from birth in a natural birth setting versus an artificialized or we'll say the industry of birth, if you will.
Leo galland (13:33.838) The newborn infant acquires a population of bacteria passing through the birth canal. And these come from the mother.
Leo galland (13:50.222) If the infant doesn't have that experience, he or she will still get populated with bacteria, but it's not going to be the same set of bacteria. Now of course, the mother's vaginal bacteria play an important role. There are, by the way, there are some obstetricians who are taking vaginal swabs from the mother when this baby is born by C-section.
swabbing the skin of the baby to make sure that transfer occurs or to try and make sure that transfer occurs. So that starts things out. Now, the infant's microbiome, the gut microbiome, will change over the course of the first year of life.
Josh (14:23.677) Hmm.
Leo galland (14:48.302) To some extent the functions change, but to a large extent it's the organisms that change, but many of them do the same functions. It's kind of like if there's a factory that has different shifts, it's still making the same end products, which are essential end products, but the workers who are making those end products change.
Josh (15:11.965) Hmm, very interesting. Now, when you get somebody with this microbiome, let's talk about the microbiome and disease. There have been stats misquoted and misconstrued, but hopefully you can shed some light on this, that say kids born via C section have an increased risk of 60% or 70% more requiring something like asthma versus those born naturally, you talk about the development of this microbiome and the these
these disease will say or conditions, inflammatory conditions in the body.
Leo galland (15:44.206) Well, certainly if we're talking about children and allergies and asthma and allergic disorders in general, which have been increasing pretty dramatically over the past 80 years or so, my last medical book was called The Allergy Solution, and in it I traced the epidemics of allergy.
Leo galland (16:12.494) It's actually a very kind of interesting series of progressions, which started in the early 20th century and seemed to be related to industrial pollution, which was driving things like pollen allergy. The second wave was the asthma wave, which started in the middle of the 20th century and actually seems very much related to indoor air pollution.
time spent indoors, formaldehyde and other factors. And then we start seeing the increase in food allergies. And that, in addition to the asthma epidemic, that's the third wave, that is very clearly linked to the gut microbiome. And it gets very complicated because the mother's
The microbiomes that we have, even if we eat a healthy whole foods diet, avoid antibiotics. They're not the same as the microbiomes that our ancestors had or that hunter-gatherer populations have. In fact, there's a change in the microbiome going from a hunter-gatherer kind of situation
to an agricultural situation. There are changes there. And then with industrialization and then the use of antibiotics, there have been massive changes. So even if you have a child born from a healthy mother by natural birth, the organisms that child is acquiring are not going to be the same as the organisms acquired by a child.
born to a hunter-gatherer tribe at the same time. And it may be that the needs change anyway, because the microbiome is constantly responding to your environment, as well as its own environment, and the food that you feed it.
Josh (18:15.248) Hmm.
Josh (18:35.593) Let's talk about some of those influential factors. Because we talk about birth and the food we eat and the industrial revolution. What sort of factors have you found have influenced the microbiome the most? Is it pesticide, herbicide, fungicide use? Is it, what is it?
Leo galland (18:51.763) Oh, the use of antimicrobials has a huge impact. Exposure to Roundup also has a big impact. There are a lot of things that are, that wind up in food that are not part of the diet, that very strongly impact the way the bacteria grow, the selection of the bacteria.
and their effects on our health are not always directly obvious. But antibiotics, I mean...
antibiotics will make them in and totally wipe out populations of bacteria. Depending on which antibiotic and the person's history, they may bounce back or they may not bounce back. And the more potent and broad spectrum the antibiotics are, the less likely that there'll be recovery. And that creates some very complex situations. For example,
In the case of inflammatory bowel disease, everybody in this area, in this field, now agrees that a very significant component of inflammatory bowel disease is the response of the immune system to microbes in the gut and that there are alterations in gut microbes in IBG or when there's any kind of gut inflammation.
Sometimes people with inflammatory bowel disease get better with antibiotics. But the antibiotics actually aggravate the dysbiosis that was there to begin with. So that can be a very tight balance. Like you're walking a tightrope between, well, we wanna control it with this, but this is hard.
Leo galland (20:58.862) This is a very heavy-handed tool to be controlling it with. Also, there is an impact of inflammation itself on the microbes. This is kind of fascinating, actually. Inflammation generates nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is a gas that plays vital, important roles in regulating different processes in your body. Nitric oxide...
breaks down to nitrates. Well, you think about the environment. You know what? I mean, nitrates do bad things in the environment. So just as nitrates and detergents that get into the water pollute streams and change the microbiome of the stream and can lead to overgrowth of algae and undesirable bacteria, there are inflammatory organisms in your gut.
that thrive on nitrates. So they get a taste of nitrate. They're like real happy. At the same time, some of the most beneficial bacteria are poisoned by nitrates. And so the inflammation itself creates a vicious cycle of dysbiosis that has to be interrupted. You try putting a probiotic into that situation, it's gonna have a hard time doing what you expect it to do.
Josh (22:16.457) Hmm.
Leo galland (22:26.838) You have to control the inflammation first.
Josh (22:31.377) Yeah, inflammatory bowel disease is interesting. And I've sort of been looking at it lately as more of a spectrum. Obviously, there's this autoimmunity, and I see it as a spectrum from IBS to IBD rather than these two completely isolated incidents, and obviously one has an autoimmune component. But I describe it. I've seen a lot of people come in who have had a little bit of bowel issue. Maybe it was constipation, diarrhea, little bloats and discomfort, a little bit of pain here and there that worsened and worsened over time.
20 years later, they go to the doctor and they have this diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease. And so it's a really interesting process we're starting to see. Now I have seen it come out of nowhere, be it antibiotic induced, be it somebody traveling who ate something they shouldn't, there was maybe a Citrobacter or a Klebsiella or something introduced that caused bleeding right away, but it is a very interesting system. Now you talk about the immune system in response to the microbes.
Can you talk about that? Is it the endotoxins? Is it the genetic interactions? What is that role between the two of them?
Leo galland (23:44.61) cells, their cell membranes and cell walls contain substances. One group are called endotoxins, the more official name for it is LPS or lipopolysaccharides, but there are other, depending on the nature of the bacteria, there are other sequences. There may be peptide sequences that are in the bacterial wall.
system recognizes these and it responds to them and it responds with a state of activation. It knows this is this is a marker of something foreign that we need to you know I mean it's like the border control or the Coast Guard. We need to be careful about these but we also need to understand what's out there. So
They sample them and to, they level a little bit in so they can sample them, educate themselves, ramp up their level of activity. And this phenomenon actually plays a role in the normal architecture of sleep. It's another factoid that's not well known. The in response,
Josh (24:56.862) Mm-hmm.
Leo galland (25:14.414) to their interactions with the gut microbiome, immune cells in the gut release chemicals, interleukin 18 is the name of one of them, TNF alpha, they're a whole bunch of cytokines, chemicals, proteins released by the immune system that gets activated. These circulate in the blood and they get to the brain. In the brain, they induce a deep state of sleep.
Josh (25:28.553) Mm-hmm.
Leo galland (25:44.158) Now, what regulates how much of that is produced is the adrenal glands. The adrenal glands suppress that inflammatory response. See, there's a diurnal pattern of adrenal activation. Adrenal glands are most active early in the morning, and then they kind of become less and less active, so that by middle of the night, there's very little adrenal activity.
Josh (26:05.523) Mm-hmm.
Leo galland (26:13.826) the cytokines have the opposite pattern. When the adrenal activity is high, they drop down. When the adrenal activity is lower, they spike. And so deep sleep, so what used to be called beauty sleep, I don't know if that term is still used, or delta wave sleep, that initial very deep sleep that occurs between say midnight and 4 a.m.
Josh (26:33.424) It is.
Leo galland (26:43.746) That is due to the effect of these cytokines on the hypothalamus in the brain. And those cytokines are being produced by the immune system in the gut in response to components of the bacteria, the bacterial walls. And that's why you can't duplicate that by taking a nap in the middle of the day. It won't work, your body is not programmed for that.
Josh (27:14.162) So cytokines are usually seen as just being these inflammatory things and prostaglandins as part of the inflammatory process. And the term cytokine storm became really popular recently. And so I think there's a big misunderstanding on how they work and interact.
Leo galland (27:30.13) Well, you know, cytokines do a lot of different things and what they do depends upon the milieu in which they're acting. The immune system in the body, we talk about inflammation and anti-inflammatory. The body does not actually think that way. That is, those are values that we're imposing on what the immune system does. The immune system basically has five functions.
attack, repair, resolve, and remember. Those are the five things that the immune system does for us. And different cells do each contribute to it in their own way. I mean, there are many, many different components to the immune system.
So cytokines, depending on where you are in that process, where each immune cell is, cytokines may impact it differently. Now, some cytokines tend to really promote the attack response, but if you don't get an attack, you don't get a repair. And repair does not get you to resolution. Repair...
Josh (28:43.584) Right.
Leo galland (28:49.006) Chaint is not homeostasis. It doesn't get you back to where you were before or where you would like to be. So you can, too much repair creates its own problems. In fact, in inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's disease especially, the scarring that occurs is a reflection of too much repair and not enough resolution. So there's just a very tricky balance all the way through.
And the microbiome plays a huge role in interacting with these five immune responses, five parts of the immune response, to guide the immune system. If you don't have that microbiome constantly interacting and teaching your immune cells, the process is not going to go well.
Now, when it comes to cytokine storm, it's in the context of COVID-19. That cytokine storm was mostly driven by certain cytokines. The main driver is believed to be interferon gamma. Interferon gamma actually has always sort of been a hero in medicine before this because it's antiviral, it's anti-cancer. But...
In certain conditions, Crohn's disease being one, too much interferon gamma, you know, is not a good thing. It drives excess inflammation. Now, the reason that there's too much interferon gamma in active COVID-19 is because the initial response to the virus, which to a large extent depends on another interferon called interferon
it doesn't occur because this virus knows how to turn off the interferon alpha response. So then you lose interferon alpha and at some point things start to get out of control and interferon gamma comes in and it just blows everything away.
Leo galland (31:15.502) They promote inflammation, but it can be anti-inflammatory. It actually can calm things down. And its relative interferon beta is actually used to treat conditions like multiple sclerosis that involve excess inflammation in the brain. So there's always this balance. One of my favorite probiotics releases interferon alpha.
Leo galland (31:46.591) It's been very useful in restoring and acting like an Alexander organism and restoring some balance in the gut after there's been an infection and a disruption.
Josh (32:03.401) Hmm. It's really interesting because we often see these microbes as producing little byproducts, you know, like short chain fatty acids and all kinds of little things that are directly related to the gut. But it often gets skimmed over or the knowledge is too deep to understand that there's a much deeper role they play. They I mean, just releasing interferon is something that most people wouldn't even imagine a microbe can do.
Leo galland (32:30.17) Oh, yeah, I mean, microbes do. We're gonna find out, as I said, over 95% of the chemicals circulating in your blood originate with your microbiome. And various processes that we know are important in our immune cells are also going on with the microbes and they may be telling our immune cells, well, do this, not that.
or the cells that line the intestine. As far as the short-chain fatty acids go, they're very interesting substances, even though they're very simple substances. The one that's received the most attention and appropriately is butyrate. Butyric acid is a volatile four-carbon fatty acid. We're familiar with octane.
you know, in gasoline, well, this is half the number of carbons as in octane. And it's because it's, first, it nourishes the lining of the intestine. It is the main food that the large intestine uses as a source of energy, supplies about 80% of the energy that the mitochondria in the cells in the large intestine use.
Josh (33:31.078) Mm-hmm.
Leo galland (33:59.33) And so that's one area where it's very helpful. But because it is a volatile fatty acid, it penetrates right through membranes. It goes from the large intestine into your bloodstream and from your bloodstream into your brain. And it has anti-inflammatory effects in the body as a whole. And it also alters
gene expression. And this is, here's another really interesting factoid. Butyrate is what's called a histone deacetylase inhibitor. And the way, yes, that's right. So the way that your gene expression is controlled, you know what I mean, so we have all these genes, most of the time, they're not active.
Josh (34:38.566) That's a lot. That's a mouthful.
Leo galland (34:54.21) 30,000 genes we have are not all talking at once. They're being silenced. And acetylation is a process that activates them. Deacetylation inactivates genes, like turns them off. This inhibits that deacetylation, so it allows the activation of certain genes. In the brain, when there's been an injury,
The process of repair involves acetylation. So you want to turn off the deacetylation process. And that's what butyrate does. And this has been studied in animals with inflammation and with infections, inflammation, anything that causes brain injury. Butyrate helps the brain to repair.
And the source of this butyrate is gut microbes. You don't make this yourself. So if we take something like COVID-19 where there is brain injury, there's also a kind of devastation of the bacteria in the gut that are the main producers of butyrate. There's a real need for butyrate, not only for healing the gut, but for healing the brain.
Josh (36:23.857) Fascinating. It's just so connected in our body. And I find it more and more interesting. The more and more I learn, the more and more I study it that there is not one single thing in the body not connected to another. And I think Western medicine has taken a very mechanical view traditionally of the body. Well, that doesn't work. We'll just cut this organ out or that doesn't work. We'll just give this drug and it's not so black and white. It's not an add some, lose some it's lose some, lose a lot.
Leo galland (36:25.143) Yeah, it is.
Josh (36:50.865) is everything's connected, it's fascinating stuff.
Leo galland (36:54.058) Well, yeah, the problem in conventional medicine is the way that specialties have developed, you know, around organs. And so there are these silos. And specialists can really play a very important role, but what you really need is a kind of integrative approach to physiology and specialization and understanding the way each part.
relates to each other part. And that's where something like functional medicine does really make a contribution.
Josh (37:31.901) I think it's scary when you get GI specialists, specialists who specialize in digestive disease and digestive dysfunction, saying that food doesn't matter, has no influence on your gut, your health, eat whatever you want. It's scary stuff.
Leo galland (37:45.214) That doesn't even make sense. That right from day one, that never made sense to me. What's creating the environment there?
Josh (37:47.377) Right.
Josh (37:54.537) Yeah, that sounds like third grade math to me. But, you know, to each their own, I suppose. Here's a question for you, Doc. We've got, I mean, there's so much to cover. And you can write dissertation after dissertation on the gut and the information around it, how it's connected interacts and plays with other organs. And it's to me, the most fascinating aspect of the human body is the gut and its microbes. It blows me away.
So let's talk about how to keep that healthy. Now, obviously we know, you know, eat well, get an abundant diet, all of that. But I'd like to ask you a question specific to modern day. If you look at stats from like the EWG, right? The environmental working group, they'll say that the average adult has 500 plus chemicals, including petroleum products and rocket fuel and all these things floating through our body, the average fetus and utero will have 200 plus chemicals, we're absorbing these constantly. They're endocrine disruptors.
microbiome killers. How can we in our modern world being as toxic, polluted and imbalanced as it is to those of us who already have gut dysfunction, I'd say 99% of us plus unless we live on an island in the middle of nowhere. I mean, even they're getting plastic. So I say maybe everybody, right?
Leo galland (39:06.814) sure if you live on an island in the middle of nowhere you're getting polluted you're eating polluted fish and
Josh (39:13.131) Yeah, you're screwed too. So how do we take care of our guts?
Leo galland (39:18.727) Okay, well.
Diet does have an impact.
Leo galland (39:27.31) Two dietary factors that I find to be the most important are fiber, of course, which feeds the colonic bacteria and prebiotic, related in the fiber category are prebiotic carbohydrates, and polyphenols, especially bioflavonoids, which are found in herbs and spices and teas and fruits and vegetables.
And some of them create the beautiful colors that we see. You know, like blueberries are blue because of the bioflavonoids and strawberries are red, you know, for that reason and cherries. So those actually act like curators of the gut microbiome. They impact what microbes are able to grow.
and in complex ways. So a high fiber, high polyphenol diet, I think for most people is important. Now, if you already have some kind of gut disease or food sensitivity, you may have to change that approach for your own specific needs. I mean, individualizing.
therapeutic approaches is what I've been doing for 45 years, because I just recognize that how you can get the opposite effect if you didn't pay attention to what an individual's specific needs are. But that would be, that basically would be the basis of it, plus a nutrient-dense diet. And I mean, one of the big problems that we see, and this is related to the fact that
to the epidemic of obesity, very much related to the gut microbiome. I mean, there are microbes that help maintain leanness, and there are microbes that help, that basically turn off the signals for leanness and encourage the buildup of fat. And they do that in a way by creating a low-grade inflammation, and increasing the inflammatory response.
Leo galland (41:55.786) And that's, you get a lot of inflammation, you'll start losing weight. But you get this chronic low-grade inflammation, it starts to change your metabolism in ways that lead to weight gain. So, the, so basically that becomes, that approach is foundational. The, and then choosing,
Finding micro probiotics and maybe prebiotics that work for you can make a big difference. Now there's just, there's simply no perfect probiotic and there's none that works for everybody. And in my clinical experience, I've seen some patients who did great with a particular probiotic. Next person comes along, has the same diagnosis, has a terrible reaction to it. Again, because,
We all have unique microbiomes. In fact, a forensic specialist can determine who is in a room by sampling the microbial DNA in that room. You know the cartoon character Pig Pen? We're all pig pens. We walk around, and wherever we go, we leave a trail of the microbes in our body.
Josh (43:15.601) Yeah.
Josh (43:23.869) Wow.
Leo galland (43:24.926) And if you can identify the microbial DNA in the room, then you know who is there because we each have a unique fingerprint of microbes.
Josh (43:33.254) Wow.
Josh (43:38.533) That's, I mean, it makes sense. You got, you know, shedding and skin cells and all kinds, the microbes, like I feel like Pigpen now. You know, 500 years ago, if you were living in a village and you were a murderer, you can move a mile down the road, grow a beard and put on a hat and nobody could find you. And now you leave a trail of microbes like Pigpen everywhere and you can swab the air. That's crazy to me.
Leo galland (44:06.102) Yeah, I mean, that is coming. I mean, you know, that technology is emerging.
Josh (44:13.565) Wow. Well, you've talked on COVID a little bit here in this podcast. I know you're quite the COVID specialist here as well. You've been doing a lot of work on that and a lot of research on long COVID and COVID recovery. What have you seen has been the most prominent impact to people either getting COVID or COVID vaccination on the gut microbiome?
Leo galland (44:32.782) Well, COVID, the vaccination effect hasn't really been studied. It should be.
because the vaccines can do many of the same things that the virus itself does. But there is an impact of having COVID on the gut microbiome that isn't measured. To some extent, the underlying state of your microbiome may impact how you respond to the impact.
Leo galland (45:08.59) start out with what looks like a normal microbiome. A normal by US standards may not be normal by global and historical standards. But once people get COVID, there is a depletion of certain key microbial species in the gut. They're called keystone species. And probably the most important that's impacted
Josh (45:18.755) Sure.
Leo galland (45:37.734) is an organism called Fecalobacterium prousinitzi. It's a major producer of butyrate, and it also is a major supporter of the growth of bifidobacteria. Bifidobacteria are way more familiar to people because they're available as probiotics. Very hard to grow Fecalobacterium prousinitzi in a way that you could take it as a pill. But people, when people recover from COVID,
fecal bacterium prosinitzy recovers. In people with long COVID, the fecal bacterium prosinitzy does not recover and the bifidobacteria stay low. And so the butyrate is low. And that's a really important part of the recovery process. Plus there's some kind of astonishing work from Italy indicating that this virus.
causes COVID-19, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has the ability to enter bacteria and live there, and that it infects not only human cells and the cells of other mammals, but has the potential to exist as a bacteriophage, and that the reservoir of viral particles in the body, which has been well recognized as a contributing factor to long COVID,
reservoir may actually be in gut bacteria or at least part of that reservoir. Well, that is kind of a mind-boggling concept in terms of trying to figure out how we deal with that. That's where the that's why this bacterial species, Bacillus subtilis 7092, it's a specific strain, that releases alpha interferon is part of the protocol that I use for people recovering from
So alpha interferon helps to clear out residual virus in the gut, or it should. I mean, I can't say that this is proven, but it should. And I would say that almost most of the people who have GI symptoms after COVID, they improve very significantly with this probiotic.
Leo galland (48:03.49) So I think that, and I think what we're seeing is the impact of alpha interferon in a positive way in the GI tract.
Josh (48:12.761) And what was the name of that probiotic?
Leo galland (48:14.922) Well, the specific strain is Bacillus subtilis 7092. It was originally developed in the Soviet Union back about 45, 50 years ago. They started giving it to their troops, especially the ones in Afghanistan, because those guys were getting really sick. And...
Ukrainian scientists were involved in that development. So in Ukraine, it's called Sudolin. In Russia, it's called Vetom. And in the US, it's imported under the name Tundrax. One of my patients was involved in that importation, asked me to test it out on patients of mine. And I was quite impressed with its ability to help people.
who were having a hard time recovering from GI infections. Once the infection was, infection had been treated but the person wasn't better. This seemed to help repeatedly with the recovery process.
Josh (49:30.409) Fascinating. So is this something that you have you ever done any work with the wellness company on this regard?
Leo galland (49:37.817) I don't think so.
Josh (49:39.533) So the reason I ask, I had an interview with Dr. Peter McCullough a couple of weeks back and he's obviously really big on this process here. And one of the things that they've been using for, mostly for spike protein degradation they found was like NAC, they've used dandelion, a couple other little things that are actually quite natural. They found some good results to help people break down these spike protein. And this bacillus subtilis 7092 might be something they'd be very interested in.
Leo galland (50:08.206) Possibly, yeah. The thing with the spike pro, I mean, but the alpha interferon is specifically dealing with the concept that there's a live virus, you know, that still has to be gotten rid of. There may be other effects though. There may be other anti-inflammatory effects. Alpha interferon in all sort of colitis, alpha interferon has been shown to be helpful. It hasn't, I'm not sure I would use it with Crohn's disease. So it's a different.
Josh (50:18.608) Mm.
Leo galland (50:37.07) inflammatory process going on. In terms of breaking down the spike protein, there is an enzyme found in soy that does that, natokinase. And natokinase not only has anti-clotting effects and helps to heal the lining of blood vessels, it's the one proteolytic enzyme that has been shown to actually break down the spike protein. So I use natokinase quite a bit.
Josh (50:47.414) Oh, natal kinase, yeah.
Leo galland (51:06.006) in people who are recovering or not recovering from COVID-19.
Josh (51:11.197) That is fascinating. It's really amazing. And so I did have a question that came up when you're talking about, you know, COVID virus living in bacteria and really getting inside there as these bacteria grow and replicate then is this replicating the COVID virus itself?
Leo galland (51:29.595) Yeah, it would be, if there's a certain amount of virus living in these bacteria, then as the, you get more and more virus containing, as the bacteria multiplies. Now, at some point, this is what happens with bacteriophages. They can, they can exist in what's called a latent form or a lysogenic form.
or they can move into a lytic form where they kill the bacteria. In fact, that's why they're called bacteriophages, literally means eating bacteria. And so, activating the virus might actually kill the bacteria that they're in. And one of the issues there is that the bacteria that seems to be most infected by this virus
is fecal bacterium prausinitzi. So is the loss of F. prausinitzi in the course of COVID-19 due to the lytic effect of the virus as a bacteriophage? And what can we do about that aside from trying to kill the virus? Well, I'm looking into ways of approaching that. Maybe you want...
to stimulate that process and then repopulate. Stimulate it, get rid of the bacteria of the bacteria that contain the virus, but then get rid of the virus when it's free outside the bacteria, and then try and rebuild the bacteria. It's a complex process and I haven't worked out what the ideal mechanics are.
Josh (53:17.449) That was going to be my next question is how would you do that? But I guess that's something that's still in development.
Leo galland (53:21.418) Well, I mean, one possibility is if this bacteriophage is activated by stevia, then you would take stevia, not as a sweetener, but as a medication, which has been, there are some studies using stevia for medicinal purposes, not as a sugar substitute. I mean, it's generally pretty safe for short periods of time.
Leo galland (53:52.078) the lytic phase of this virus. So it would kill off the bacteria that are infected. But at the same time, you've got to use some antiviral. So I always combine that with the bacillus subtilis or some antiviral herbs. And then try to build, and then follow that with prebiotics to build up the fecal bacteria, rebuild the missing bacteria.
So this is a work in progress. And I think before I advocate it, you asked how might I approach it. This is how I might approach it. But before advocating that people go out and do this, I want to make sure that it actually works.
Josh (54:40.137) Hmm. So one last question for you. There's a lot of mixed research on it. And I was, I had an interview with Dr. William Davis, he wrote wheat belly and you know, just came up with super gut. Yeah, he's a good dude. So so Bill and I were talking about bacteria and he was saying for the most part, you know, they're in three, four days, he's probiotics to kind of do their job and they leave. What does it look like for somebody who's lacking?
Leo galland (54:51.722) Oh yeah, yeah I know.
Josh (55:06.669) certain bacteria, maybe they've been killed off. One of the things I see most commonly in GI maps of clients that I see with IBD or UC is acrimansia. It's a big popular bacteria now, but it's trashed. It's always super low, not detectable.
Leo galland (55:22.698) is a fascinating keystone organism.
Leo galland (55:29.678) a protective anti-inflammatory role in ulcerative colitis and is generally low in ulcerative colitis. It also has effects on your own metabolism, your body's metabolism. It helps with the control of blood sugar, may help with the control of weight, and it has strong immune stimulating effects. Now there may be some situations in which acrimansia
dangerous. There's some concerns raised about it in multiple sclerosis, for example. It may be it can stimulate gamma interferon. So maybe caution needs to be used there. In people with Parkinson's disease, some data indicated that acrimansia could play a negative role. So it's not…this gets back to the fact that
people are individuals. There's no uniform probiotic, but I see a lot of people in whom I'm interested in building up acrimansia growth and activity. There's only one company that makes acrimansia as a probiotic pendulum. And they have two different forms of it. One just pure acrimansia, the other mixed with some, other, some butyrate.
Josh (56:47.705) That's a pendulum. Yeah.
Leo galland (56:59.514) of producing organisms that they've actually tested and shown to help reduce blood sugar. And acromanses is kind of interesting because you may not need live bacteria to have its beneficial metabolic effects. Studies in the Netherlands showed, or in Belgium, I think, showed that there are proteins in the capsule of the acromansia that can do the job without the need for live bacteria. It's influencing...
Its anti-inflammatory effects, however, may require live bacteria. There are foods that encourage the growth of acarmancia, cranberries, pomegranates, basically high flavonoid-rich foods. And for some reason, the red flavonoids seem to be more active. There are also some colorless prebiotics that will do that.
compound called mannan oligosaccharides. So there are a number of approaches to raising the level of acrimansia in the gut that I've used with patients of mine. I have a formula for something I call an acrimansia shake.
Josh (58:13.193) So.
Josh (58:17.297) Hmm. Is that, is that on your website? Is that, is that something you can give us now?
Leo galland (58:20.702) Well, it's not posted on my website, but I mean, I can, people make it go to my website, go to, you know, contact my office, I can send them the formulas.
Josh (58:32.877) I love that. So I know we're wrapping up to the end of our hour here and I could ask so many other questions. So two quick ones for you. Hopefully they're quick to answer. One, there's debate about whether or not probiotics actually get it in culture. This is something Bill and I were talking about. It's that they're in for a couple of days, then they're out. The other is that
Why do you think acrimansia would be so low? Is it because it's producing this interferon gamma and is the body attacking? This bacteria saying we need to suppress you or is it something else that just happened?
Leo galland (59:10.814) related to diet. Acromansia, by the way, lives in the colon, not the small intestine. It lives in the mucus and it basically feeds on the mucus that's normally produced as part of a protective mechanism. And then when it feeds on the mucus, the products of that feeding support the growth of other bacterial species.
certain bacteroidy species. I mean, see, all of these bacteria exist in their own ecosystems and what are called symbiotic clusters, where one type of organism, because of the way that its own metabolic activity supports another type of organism, which then supports a third. And the, yeah, so I think dietary pattern has a lot to do
with this, but also there's something that happens in a society. People who live together are more likely to share the same microbiome than people who are genetically related but live apart. Even diet only has a partial effect. It's kind of like, who do you live with? Do you have pets?
Josh (01:00:35.901) Right, right.
Leo galland (01:00:37.99) There's been so much interesting work on this. And I'll maybe close with a story about a species of lactobacillus called Lactobacillus johnsoni. So researchers in San Francisco were trying to figure out why do some people with allergies who have pets, why do pets protect against allergies? And what they found was that dogs…
Having a dog would protect against allergies, but only if it was an outdoor dog. It was an indoor dog, didn't have any protective effects. So they started looking at what's the difference. And they found that the difference in the poop of these dogs was lactobacillus johnsoni. And they also did a study with rats, and rats happen to eat poop. So it wasn't like they were creating an...
Josh (01:01:31.516) Mmm.
Leo galland (01:01:33.17) artificial situation except they fed them the stool of different kinds of dogs, indoor dogs and outdoor dogs or no dogs. And they found that the rats who were fed the outdoor dog poop were resistant to developing allergies in their model and it seemed to have to do with the lactobacillus johnsoni. So when they isolated this johnsoni and they fed it to these rats they got the same effect.
Josh (01:01:48.636) That's a tough sentence to get through, hey?
Leo galland (01:02:03.474) So this was actually where I first got the idea of an Alexander organism, because it wasn't just the John Sony, it was the John Sony changed the whole microbiome in these rats. So yes, so that's, if you, when you go into the world of the microbiome, that's the kind of world you're living in.
Josh (01:02:27.461) And the lesson here is not to eat dog poop. I just want to be very clear. Glad we're on the same page.
Leo galland (01:02:30.37) Yeah, right. Yes, I am not advocating that.
Leo galland (01:02:36.87) But people who do have dogs share even more of the same microbiome than people who don't have dogs. Because if you have a dog or a cat, everybody pets that animal. So it's one of the ways that the microbiome is spread among people who live together.
Josh (01:02:55.945) Fascinating, fascinating. Well, Dr. Gatlin, I know I've taken more than our one hour here as promised. I really appreciate you being here and coming and sharing this knowledge. It's absolutely fascinating stuff. And sometimes I don't learn a whole lot on these episodes. Most of the time I do. I think so far of all the interviews we've done, this is the most educational one I've had so far. And I thank you for that.
Leo galland (01:03:21.614) Well, thanks for having me on. I love talking about this stuff, as you can tell.
Josh (01:03:26.881) I could tell I appreciate you. Well, hopefully we'll have you back again sometime soon. Thanks. So I'm just going to stop the
Leo galland (01:03:30.066) Okay, okay, great.