Dr. Patrick: I'm interested in your microbiome data, is that something...have you experimented with how your personal microbiome looks, you know, versus if you're eating more vegetables, or not?

Dr. Snyder: A little bit, your microbiome, believe it or not, doesn't shift that much, you really have to make a long-term commitment to shift. If you take an antibiotic, you'll shift it, and then it bounces right back, believe it or not, as soon as you go off the antibiotic. Now, some of your strains will change but the general composition is pretty similar if you take an antibiotic. But some of the sub-strains...which may be important, some people are still trying to figure that out.

For me, I can tell one thing that works, Lactobacillus reuteri, you know, maybe a little gross, but gives you the stool composition you're looking for. I did try that and sure enough, it does work. These days with my fiber diets and various things I eat, I haven't worried about it because I do seem to be pretty well set up that way. But I have done that. And I'm about to try some other experiments. I've been doing all kinds of...our lab is doing all kinds of fiber experiments to see what fibers do what to what microbes, and we have seen some very interesting shifts.

You hear fiber is good for you but you may not realize but there's all kinds of fibers out there. There are what are called long chain and short chain, and hydrophobic, meaning greasy, and hydrophilic meaning water, you know, loving, and you know, positive, negative. It's like saying all animals are the same, they're just all different. And so we're trying to see which fibers do what. So we have some academic studies going on there. Yeah, we have a good one that is known already but the literature is very, very confused on these. But this one is very, very clear, which is arabinoxylan which is found in psyllium husk will actually drop your cholesterol. That one is pretty clear.

Dr. Patrick: Oh, that's cool. So there is a...like you mentioned earlier, the associations between microbiome composition and metabolic health, like type 2 diabetes, for example. And there's also autoimmune connections, if I remember correctly, as well.

Dr. Snyder: There are yeah, there is a lot of connections between your microbiome. And our case, by the way, we know microbes correlate with that drop in cholesterol. So we think they're an important part of that and, in fact, it's the way they're dealing with the bile acids, we think they suck out your cholesterol.

Dr. Patrick: Oh, really?

Dr. Snyder: Yeah, it's a very different mechanism that people appreciate that we've learned by doing the steep profiling. And so we do the...

Dr. Patrick: What's the strain again?

Dr. Snyder: I don't remember the exact strains that were doing it but they were microbes that seem to be elevated. And what we think they're doing is they're actually making more secondary bile acids, which bind cholesterol and actually remove it from your blood. And that's how we think it lowers, that's our model, we haven't proven that. That's how we think you can lower your cholesterol with this fiber. Which I don't think anybody appreciated before because they hadn't seen all these different components.

Dr. Patrick: Have you heard about people...there's a lot of anecdotes out there and might even be published data about L. reuteri actually lowering cholesterol as well.

Dr. Snyder: Yeah, that didn't do it for me, but that could be a personal thing, it's possible. Lactobacillus in general, you know, the bifidobacter and lactobacillus, those are your beneficial microbes, as you probably know. And so in general, things...and fibers generally increase both of those. So that's one way in which they promote this. They're thought to actually make something called short-chain fatty acids, which give your immune system a boost. So that's one way in which fibers are thought to do it.

But it probably is the case that different people react to different fiber, it's very clear they do. And that depends on your microbiome because your microbiome will degrade the fibers differently. And so the microbes you have will degrade a certain set of fibers that's different from the microbes I have in my gut. And so that's one of the reasons we are different in our metabolic health.

Dr. Patrick: Do you think there's a good reason to measure your personal, you know, microbiome, like, for example, in your fecal...there's quite a few companies now, you know, that are available to consumers, you know, where people can give a little sample and see what's in their gut basically?

Dr. Snyder: Right, right. So the answer is yes. Microbiome, it's one of these things everybody knows is super, super important. But the actual showing something with clinical value has been really, really tough. So, a lot of companies have formed, and a lot have gone away. And we know that there is something there and it's a matter of getting the right understanding, I think, to go with this. Because I think, ultimately, knowing your microbiome is really going to be important for knowing what foods you should be eating.

And so some of the companies that are forming around this area, there is going to be value in all that but it's not all worked out yet, but stay tuned, I think it's coming very, very soon, actually, and how it relates to immune health and such. So it's, kind of, interesting because you may not know, but you have more immune cells in your gut than anywhere else in your body. And it's because they're actually in this interplay with your microbiome that's in your colon, in your feces.

So basically, there's this interplay between your immune system, your microbiome, and the food you eat, and it's a three-way access. And so as a direct link, if you will, between food, what's going on in your gut, and your immune health. And then obviously, your metabolic health since your microbiome is making all these metabolites that show up in your bloodstream and are critical for your whole metabolism. So, it's a whole interplay.

To us, this is why the big data is so important, because it gives you a better understanding of your whole health picture not, you know, just some 5 or 10 little analytes that it gives you, again, just a very, very narrow view of your health. So this is why we think these big picture...and ultimately food logging is a pain, you probably have done it. We need better ways to food log because I think that will help. And they're coming, they're better than they used to be. But I think that's going to be critical knowing your food health, again, and your microbiome and all these things. So you can put all the pieces together, and really make healthy people without having to take drugs, quite frankly. I wish I didn't have to take any drugs, but I have high cholesterol and I have high glucose so I'm taking two, which I'd prefer not to if I can control other ways.