The Longevity Formula

Dr. Gundry on Butyrate, Biofilms, and the Truth About Probiotics

• Dr. Brandon Crawford • Season 2 • Episode 49

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Dr. Brandon Crawford and bestselling author Dr. Steven Gundry challenge the medical myth of a mind-body separation, arguing the gut may be our "first brain." They dive into how gut health, influenced by biofilms, light, and microbial diversity, directly impacts brain fog, mood, and chronic disease. Learn practical steps to heal your gut ecosystem, boost butyrate, and reframe your approach to wellness from the inside out.


Products


Resources Mentioned

Books by Dr. Gundry:

  • The Plant Paradox (2017)
  • The Longevity Paradox
  • Gut Check (latest)
  • The Energy Paradox
  • Unlocking the Keto Code

Clinical Tools & Tests:

  • Vibrant Wellness “Gut Zoomer” stool test + Anti‑zonulin, Anti‑actin, Anti‑LPS leaky gut blood panel Gundry Health

Supplement Protocols & Products:

  • Gundry MD 24‑strain probiotic (research-based formulation)
  • Gundry MD Bio Complete 3 (prebiotic + probiotic + postbiotic blend)

Specific Concepts & Tools Mentioned:

  • Vitamin D3 (aggressive dosing up to 10,000–40,000 IU/day with K2) to seal gut and suppress autoimmunity.
  • Fermented foods (kimchi, sauerkraut, kefir, coffee, tea, wine, dark chocolate) as critical fiber + microbial substrates.
  • Light therapy (red / near‑infrared photobiomodulation) to influence gut microbiome and mitochondria.

Products


Learn More
For more information, resources, and podcast episodes, visit https://tinyurl.com/3ppwdfpm

Voice Over

Welcome to the longevity formula with doctor Brandon Crawford. Let's explore the new era of wellness.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

What if your brain fog isn't in your brain? What if your anxiety, your low energy, your mood swings are coming from your gut? We tend to separate body and mind, brain and belly. But what if that's a medical myth? You've got more neurons in your gut than in your spinal cord. 90% of serotonin. Your feel good neurochemicals made in your digestive system and your vagus nerve.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

It sends nine messages up to your brain for every one that it receives. So when we talk about brain health, mental clarity, anxiety, or even spiritual discernment, we have to talk about the gut. Our guest today knows this better than anyone. Doctor Stephen Gundry is the bestselling author behind The Plant Paradox, The Longevity Paradox, and most recently, the Gut Brain Paradox, where he makes the case that the gut isn't just your second brain.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

It may be your first. Doctor Gundry has helped millions reframe chronic disease, inflammation and aging through his unique clinical lens. Today, we go deeper than diet. We're talking about light, vagal tone, microbial intelligence, and what you can do tomorrow to start healing the body from the brain down in the gut. Doctor Gundry, thank you so much for joining us.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

I am so honored to have you on.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Well, thanks for having me, Brandon. And, let's talk all things gut and brain.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Absolutely. I guess just to kind of start off, I'm really curious how you started your career, you know, in the surgical vein. And then how in the world did you end up here? Now?


Dr. Steven Gundry

I don't want to build, but expand on the point too much, but, I was, chairman of cardiothoracic surgery and professor at Loma Linda University School of Medicine here in Southern California. And I was really famous heart surgeon. Did a lot of baby heart transplants, etc. and I, like some other famous heart surgeons, was famous for taking on inoperable patients, and we were cocky enough that we'd do operations that nobody else wanted to do.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And there were there's always a few of these sorts of people around to, about 30 years ago now, I was referred a gentleman from Miami, Florida, who I call Big Ed and all my books, who had inoperable coronary artery disease. He was 48 years old. The reason he's called Big Ed is he was 265 pounds when I met him.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And big Ed had a cardiac catheterization, movie of his coronary arteries where all his blood vessels were clogged up. There was so clogged up, you couldn't put stents in them. You couldn't do a bypass because there wasn't any place to land, a bypass. And so he go around the country like many other people going to these centers with idiot surgeons like me.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And everywhere he went, everybody turned him down for a very good reason. And he spent about six months doing this. He arrived with me and I looked at his angiogram from six months ago from Miami. And I said, you know, I agree with everybody else. I can't help him there. Right? And he said, well, wait a minute.


Dr. Steven Gundry

I've been doing this for six months now. I've been on a diet and I've lost 45 pounds. And so he was over 300 pounds when he started. And I've been going to a health food store and I'm taking a lot of supplements. And he literally had brought in a giant shopping bag full of supplements with him. And so I'm going, well, you know, good for you for losing some weight, but, you know, it's not going to help anything in here.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And I know what you do with all those supplements you made expensive urine with you, which I firmly believe back then. And it's all love that I, you know, come all the way from Miami. What would it hurt to get another angiogram, another cardiac catheterization, to roll my eyes and, you know, don't don't get your hopes up. But we did.


Dr. Steven Gundry

So in six months time, this guy cleaned out 50% of the blockages in the heart. God. And that's impossible. But there I am, staring at the two angiogram. So, I asked him about his diet and it just so happens that the diet is he was following was my undergraduate thesis that I defended from Yale University back in the dark ages.


Dr. Steven Gundry

That you could take a great ape, manipulate its food supply, manipulate its environment and prove you'd arrive at a human being. And, you know, I gave it to my parents. I got an honors on it. Defended my thesis. I went on to become famous art surgeon. But Big Ed was following this diet that I described in my research.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And when he started showing me the supplements he had been taking, I was famous for protecting the heart during heart surgery and heart transplantation by putting a lot of stuff in the coronary arteries and veins to protect the cells, and a lot of glop. I was putting down the veins and arteries he was swallowing. It never occurred me that I should swallow these things so I, I had numerous issues, even though I ran 30 miles away and went to the gym one hour a day.


Dr. Steven Gundry

I was 70 pounds overweight. I had high blood pressure, pre-diabetes, high cholesterol. I did operations with migraine headaches. I had such bad arthritis in my knees I ran with braces. Anyhow, I was told it was genetic because my father was much the same way. When I changed my diet to my thesis and started taking a bunch of supplements, I lost 50 pounds my first year, subsequently a total of 70 pounds, and kept it off.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Now for 30 years. I started putting the patients I operated on at Loma Linda on this program so that they would never have to have a reoperation, which seemed like a good idea, and we would operate on somebody. They'd be back in 5 or 7 years, and we do it all over again. So when I started doing this with my patients at Loma Linda, lo and behold, their high blood pressure went away, their diabetes went away, their arthritis went away.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And one day, that fateful day, about a year into this, I looked at the mirror and said, I've got this all wrong. I shouldn't operate on people and then teach them how to avoid me by eating. I should teach them how to avoid me first. By eating, I'll never have to operate in the first bite. Dumb idea. I resigned my position at literally the heights of my career.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Set off down the road to Palm Springs and set up a clinic where I said, look, I'm a researcher. What do you say I ask you to eat certain foods and don't eat certain foods? Why don't I send you to Costco or Trader Joe's or a health food store to buy some supplements? And I want to draw your blood every three months and see what happens.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And insurance will cover it and Medicare will cover it. And that's what we did in kind of the rest is history. It resulted eventually in the publication of The Plant Paradox in 2017, which was a monster bestseller.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Right.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And and so I still see patients six days a week, in my two clinics now. And. Yeah. So that's that's what happened to me. I saw something that was impossible and went about finding out why or what what was impossible was possible.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Right. And, I really appreciate that story because there are so many, physicians, whether surgeons, I mean, I know actually a surgeon myself that had a similar experience. She's a neurosurgeon. And because you guys are working with, you know, the worst case scenarios, and when you see these cases and you actually start to work through them and you go, wait a minute, I just saw a change.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

There's a lot of physicians that will dismiss it and they just want to I don't I don't want to say they just want to protect the system, but they they just want to, you know, put it aside and say, I'm just going to move on to the next one and, you know, go through the system. So I definitely appreciate you actually just being aware and then looking into it.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

And then I mean, it's huge being willing to shift away from the height of your career. You know, that's a that's a big deal. And that takes courage. And faith. And so thank you. Hats off.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Or stupidity, as my wife would say.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

That's funny what you bring up the concept of supplementation. It kind of makes me think through something. So when I'm working with patients and, you know, we'll run gut testing and we'll look at, you know, inflammatory markers and we'll look at all these things. And when I see someone with a very inflamed gut with, you know, a gut that's really just not functioning very well, a lot of dysbiosis.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

And, you know, the, the gap junctions are breaking down, etc. I start to have concerns about how they assimilate the supplementation that I want to give them. Is this a problem for you? Do you have a a solution for those really inflamed, GI systems that may have assimilation and absorption problems?


Dr. Steven Gundry

Well, one of the things, when we when I first started doing this, almost 30 years ago is we didn't have, leaky gut tests, intestinal permeability tests, in fact, probably, if you would ask me 30 years ago, I would have told you it was pseudoscience. But, you know, thanks to Alessio Fasano and others, we now not only know that leaky gut exists and exists in most people, but we can actually quantify it and we can watch it heal seal.


Dr. Steven Gundry

But one of the things we didn't have back then, I noticed that my patients with, autoimmune diseases and about 80% of my practice is people with autoimmune diseases that aren't getting any better or don't want to stay on immunosuppressive drugs for the rest of their lives. Like I tell them, I'm a transplant surgeon. What are you doing on one of my transplant drugs?


Dr. Steven Gundry

You don't have a heart transplant or a liver transplant, and that gets their attention. So we all these people had low vitamin D levels, and I, among others, were cognizant that vitamin D is incredibly important for helping seal leaky gut, for improving intestinal microbiome diversity and I would push vitamin D3, add them with some K2, aggressively until I got their vitamin D's above of 100 nanograms per milliliter.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And that came for most people, 100 to 150. And I noticed and I mean, sometimes it would take to start, most people on 10,000 international units or 250 micrograms, but sometimes I had to use 40, 45,000 international units of Ironman D3 a day to get their levels up. And then, as in, we would measure every three months. Most times we still do as we hit a point where all of a sudden the vitamin D levels, you know, really started skyrocketing, even though we were on the same dose.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And I said, oh, you're absorbing this better let's, you know, back, back down. And so that was my trigger, through the years before we had leaky gut tests that I would kind of keep pushing until I saw all of a sudden the vitamin D jump up, and then I go, that's a sign. And lo and behold, that correlated with people's autoimmune markers going down to normal to, unmeasurable.


Dr. Steven Gundry

So it was really interesting that vitamin D was the first tip off that I was watching that got, you know, absorb ability, work better.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Right? No, it's very interesting. I've actually noticed the same thing. If I'm trying to raise the levels quickly, I, I typically go 10,000. I use maybe up to 20,000. Are you concerned when you go higher from there about liver toxicity at all?


Dr. Steven Gundry

Never seen, never seen in my life.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

That's awesome.


Dr. Steven Gundry

The other Fornia San Diego, which is a big vitamin D research unit.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Right.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Has never seen vitamin D toxicity even at 40,000 internationally. It's a day.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

That's awesome.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Yeah. Doctor. Doctor Holick from Boston University. Salt is seen by is the d no vitamin D? He's only seen it once in his lifetime. And that was a physician who, by accident from a mislabeled compounding pharmacies, was taking a million international units of vitamin D3 a day for six months.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Oh my gosh.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Oops.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Which I'm sure once he reduced the dose or stopped taking it just it all just resolved. He was fine.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Oh yeah. Yeah.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Oh my gosh, that's hilarious. What are your thoughts? Because obviously, you know, vitamin D can be made, you know, from sun exposure, UVB exposure. There some people out there that will argue, don't supplement vitamin D, get your sun exposure, etc.. I mean, look, I live in Austin, Texas, even myself. I get what I consider adequate sun exposure.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

My D levels are still low and I correlate that with chronic stress and, you know, lifestyle and all these things. So I am a proponent of supplementation in this regard. But do you have a similar thought or do you think we can achieve vitamin D levels within range with sun?


Dr. Steven Gundry

No. Even, Joseph Mercola, who can walk daily in a Speedo on the beach for an hour and a half. His vitamin D levels can only get to about 70. Yeah, and then, I in Palm Springs, I have people who are black with tan, and their vitamin D levels are like 50. And, you know, they're shocked that, you know.


Dr. Steven Gundry

What do you mean? You know, look at me. I'm out in the sun. Well, once you once you get a sun tan, once you get a callus formation on your skin, you stop absorbing vitamin D. And I see it all the time. The other thing that I think people should know is that vitamin D, we have a layer of stem cells in the lining of our gut, and our gut wall is one of the most active turnover systems in terms of damage and replacement.


Dr. Steven Gundry

So these stem cells, actually have to be activated by vitamin D to begin to differentiate. And if you don't have enough vitamin D, they just kind of sit there and twiddle their fingers and go, well, what am I supposed to do? The other thing that was fascinating to me is that normally vitamin D is very useful to tell our immune system to not be so trigger happy, to kind of relax.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And in autoimmune diseases, we know that our immune system is obviously hyperactive, but it takes literally a slew sledgehammer of vitamin D to quiet them down. And so in this particularly true in rheumatoid arthritis. And there's been some good studies about it. So you never going to achieve those levels with just sun exposure okay.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Now that's a good correlation especially talking about the sun callus and how then that starts to weigh in into vitamin D formation. So absolutely. Do you have a favorite way to test the gut? Yeah, like a stool test. You what's your favorite way to like objectively measure what's going on in the gut?


Dr. Steven Gundry

Well, so, when when I. The human microbiome project wasn't finished until 2017, actually, the year my book was published, the original. And so we didn't know much about who was living down there. And not a day goes by that we don't learn some exciting new correlation between the species that live in our gut and the interaction that they have and our gut wall.


Dr. Steven Gundry

But so I use, I use vibrant wellness fiber in America, testing for leaky gut. I've been working with them from the day they started, and so I look at, I look primarily at, anti-Zionism and IgG, antigen and IgG antelopes is, I have not been impressed with most stool tests staying up until, and again, I have no affiliation with Iran except I like to talk to them.


Dr. Steven Gundry

They don't pay me. But their their gut zoomer. And these are stupid names. I have told them that I agree, and they actually were named Zoom Zoomers before a zoom call, so, but it's stupid, but their guts newer to me, is very useful. And, so I'll use the leaky gut tests, their blood tests, but also use the gut zoom or a stool test to find out, an additional piece of information that we didn't have access to up until really a few years ago.


Dr. Steven Gundry

So, I'll use the combination of the two. The good news is, and I've, published this data at the American Heart Association, 94% of my patients with leaky gut and, autoimmune diseases, you know, blood tests, proven autoimmune diseases, are in remission. And, nine months to a year after starting my program. And, not bad.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Not perfect, but they're they're in remission off of their drugs. So, and you can show that the gut wall is sealed. You can show that there's no longer, for instance, any antibodies to gluten or other wheat. So you can make a difference. The longest it's ever taken me to seal somebody's leaky gut was four years.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Believe it or not. Wow. It is not an instantaneous process.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Right.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Long ago, I was naive. I thought we could do it in a couple weeks.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Right. I actually have a patient recently that, you know, we started them on the program. We have their gut testing, all the things which I suspected. You're going to go, you know, with the vibrant answer. I love vibrant labs. I was one of their first adopters here in Texas. So I love the, the intestinal permeability markers, which, typically, I'll run it with the wheat zoomer test.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

And you have the gut zoomer, which we look at a lot. I love their neural zoomer, but I agree. What what's up with the Zoomer word? Right. It's it's crazy. But yeah, I recently had someone, you know, we just started them on the program. We talked about circadian biology foods, timing of food supplementation, all these things literally had a week go by in the email and they said nothing's changed yet.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Why isn't this working? And I'm like, okay, let's back up. This is this is a marathon. So I'm glad you bring that up. You know, when you're working with the expert, right, doctor Gundry. Right. You just heard. Right? Hey, 9 to 12 months. It's taken up to four years. I mean, this is a process 100%. And do you have, like, certain pillars that you walk people through food circadian supplement.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

I mean, what is your your big pillars here that you want to navigate what the majority of patients or is it truly just based on testing and you know, what you find?


Dr. Steven Gundry

Well, for instance, of my patients with leaky gut and or, and autoimmune disease, but all people with autoimmune disease have leaky gut, I can assure you, I'm convinced as others, and more and more people every year join the crowd that autoimmune diseases are merely a manifestation of leaky gut. And we should have known this because the properties that 20, 500 years ago that all disease begins in the gut.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Yeah, probably should have said all disease begins in leaky gut, right? OCO Fasano says, he stole that from me. But that's okay. He's a great guy. Yeah. I think we're beginning to realize the mechanisms of how this happened. But back up 100% of my patients with leaky gut have antibodies to the various forms of wheat, whether it's wheat germ or gluten, whether it's gluten, whether it's non gluten proteins, 100% of them are positive, 70% of them have antibodies to corn.


Dr. Steven Gundry

There. And we can go on and on. A lot of people have antibodies to lectins. The lectins fumarate. Guess where they got that idea.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Make sure that. Yeah.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Yeah. And dairy is often a mischief maker. Eggs, are surprisingly a mischief maker. And one of the things that's been very educational to me through the years back is food sensitivities. Back before all of these tests, I used to run, allergy tests on all my patients. And, you know, we put 100 pinpricks on their back and look what turned red.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And quite frankly, I was never very impressed that it gave us any useful information. But that's all we have. When, you know, leaky gut was discovered, people like Vibram said, hey, now there's intestinal permeability. Now there is literally undigested food particles could be coming through the wall of the gut and they could be recognized as foreign.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Like I told my patients, both of you eat a lot of broccoli and you have leaky gut. You're a piece of broccoli, literally, but could come through the wall of the gut and your immune system. So what the heck is a piece of broccoli doing in here that's foreign to me? I've never seen broccoli before, and I'm going to remember it.


Dr. Steven Gundry

I'm going to make an antibody to it. So the next time I see it, you know, I'll know what it is and I'll attack it. So when food. So this was IgG mediated like when we look for Covid you look for IgG antibodies. Oh yeah. You had Covid. So that means it actually got into you rather than I ge which is a totally different system.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Right. And lo and behold, when we started using food sensitivity and added this to the mix, it answered a lot of really useful questions. As, gee, I'm eating all this healthy stuff, I'm eating all this inflammatory, inflammatory diet. And then we'll find somebody, for instance, that is very sensitive to lemons. And I have a ton of people who are sensitive to lemons.


Dr. Steven Gundry

It's like, what the heck or or ginger? Ginger was another huge one that just blew me away. There's tons of people who are sensitive to Ginger. Yeah, and so on. And so that's been very useful.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Yeah, absolutely.


Dr. Steven Gundry

The other thing. So the other thing I think scares me to death. And I should have realized this, there's a husband and wife microbiology team, at Stanford, the Sonnenburg, which I hope you're aware of their research. Yes. The Sonnenburg are kind of the doomsayers of the human microbiome. Probably for good reason. They really think that most of us have a desert wasteland for a drop from microbiome rather than a tropical rainforest.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And, we really want a tropical rainforest. We want a great terrain. As I talk about in this book, they are pessimists that we will never be able to achieve that. I'm less a pessimist, but I do think they're right that it's going to take a lot of hard work. And I think, when we now look at particularly who's living in our guts and for me, particularly looking at short chain fatty acid production and particularly butyrate, it is I shouldn't have been shocked.


Dr. Steven Gundry

But initially it was shocking to me how few people make adequate amounts of butyrate in short chain acid. The other thing that's disappointing to me is that we can give people, butyrate. We can give people Akerman sirup. The holy grail of intestinal bugs.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Right.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And so many people we can, get Aquaman, see it to start growing him in patients. I don't know if you noticed that as well, but I guess it's, We're we're just really scratching the surface. And I've talked about this in my last two books of understanding that, you know, it take, as Hillary Clinton would say, it takes a village.


Dr. Steven Gundry

We we haven't cracked the code of how do we reconstitute, this tropical rainforest? Who which bug needs what to eat than another bug produce. And so we could keep throwing all these probiotics into people. But, so my story from my Palm Desert Bible Springs office is let's call probiotics grass seed. And I give my patients grass seed, and they come back three months later and said, you gave me bad grass seed.


Dr. Steven Gundry

It didn't grow. And I said, well, what did you do with it? Well, you know, I took it out to the sand and sprinkled it around. It didn't grow. And I said, well, did you fertilize it? No, you didn't dummy too well. Did you water it? No, you didn't tell me to. I said, well, what did you expect?


Dr. Steven Gundry

And I think that's what we're learning. We can swallow all these probiotics, but we really haven't quite figured out the fertilizer and the water, if you will make these guys grow.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Absolutely. Yeah, 100%. I've noticed the same thing with sacraments. Yeah. And, typically those and by the way, same thing with the low butyrate. I mean, across the board. I don't know when the last time I looked at I got Zoomer and did not see low beta eight. Now obviously I'm, I'm seeing more, you know, brain injury, neurodegenerative disorders, neurodevelopmental disorders, those types of things.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

But I mean, it's almost just standard. I mean, when I get those test results back, I know they're short chain fatty acids are going to be low. Which is a concern. That's a that's a fuel for the brain. But what I've seen is that those people with low NCA, have a high biofilm, that we need to break apart.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

And then we have certain, supplements, strategies and whatnot. And oftentimes when we start to do that, people start having parasites coming out of them. Anything from long worms to all kinds of stuff. Have you noticed a similar parasitic load in individuals?


Dr. Steven Gundry

We, we see well, we see a number of people that have kind of the garden variety parasites like giardia, and we've seen a number of amoeba. They're, they're actually, knock on wood, pretty easy to get rid of with, supplementation rather than antibiotics. Right. Knock, knock on wood. I have had to do that. One of the humorous things I, I haven't met a human being that claims they have candidiasis in their intestines that actually has an overgrowth of Canada in their intestines.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Anyhow, the but it's good on the internet, I guess.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Buzz word. Yeah.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Yeah. The, you know, I think biofilms are another piece of this, bacteria, love to protect themselves. Anyone who doesn't believe in biofilms is probably never visited a dentist and had, some of their plaque chipped off of their tooth, which is merely a biofilm. Yeah. So these things exist and we shouldn't poo poo them as pseudoscience.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Exactly. You've written extensively about lectins. I think I would like to kind of just give the audience, a little bit of an overview about why, what are they and why should we care about them.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Yeah. And, this guest actually does the same point. I can see somebodies leaky gut. It'll take a while, but I can do it. They can do it. But as I tell them. Look, if you keep swallowing razor blades and I call lecterns razor blades, then you'll just slice things back open. And so one of the things, my, my research at Yale was, animals obviously want to eat plants, and plants in general don't want you to eat them or their babies, with the exception of their fruits, which they would be delighted for you to eat those babies and carry them off to some distant spot.


Dr. Steven Gundry

So plants, can't run, they can't hide, they can't fight. But they're chemists of incredible ability, so they use chemical and biological warfare against their predators to make their predators not thrive or feel bad. And the smart predator says, gee, every time I eat these plants or these plant babies, I don't feel very good. And I'm going to stop eating those.


Dr. Steven Gundry



Dr. Brandon Crawford

Except for humans. We keep coming back.


Dr. Steven Gundry

For more really stupid. Yeah, people really get upset with me, my critics that, you know, these lectins. Well, cultures have been eating lectin containing foods for a very long time. And that's true. We've built up a defense system against these biological weapons that plants produce, and we've had up until recently, an incredibly good balance of power. And our defense systems.


Dr. Steven Gundry

For instance, acid in our stomach is part of our defense system. Mucus. Mucus is mucus polysaccharides. Lectins are proteins that wish to bind to sugar molecules. And it just so happens that mucus has a lot of those sugar molecules that lectins like to bind to. So we could trap them. Number three, our gut microbiome, if it was normal, loves eating lectin containing foods.


Dr. Steven Gundry

There are oxalate eating bacteria. They're all gone. And anyone who says they're sensitive to oxalate they're gone. I'm sorry. There are gluten eating bacteria. They're gone in most people. So it's just that we're, you know, the antibiotics we've taken, the antibiotics that are given to our animals, glyphosate, which was patented as an antibiotic, the antacids that the acid in the stomach is really good at digesting lectins.


Dr. Steven Gundry

If you take a Prilosec OTC or a Nexium to have a corndog, then the lectins in the corn will do a number on you and so on. So the other thing that I've tried to point out in the last couple books is, look, traditional cultures have always figured out a way to defuze these plant compounds and most of it is through fermentation.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Most cultures fermented their lectin containing foods or they peeled or deseeded, tomatoes or peppers, etc. interestingly enough, soaking beans. Beans have their own microbiome, and anyone who's soak beans, as I have noticed that there's this scum and foam that rises to the top, and that's the fermentation of the lectins and beans by they own their own microbiome.


Dr. Steven Gundry

So you look at Tuscany, the Tuscans always soak their beans for 48 hours and pour it off every six hours or so. And it's like, wow, what a waste of time. You could just put it in the water and boil it. Now they're degrading the left and content of these things. And so you just look and go, wow.


Dr. Steven Gundry

The people who developed corn always treated corn with boiling it in lime juice or treating it with lye. Nick to mention, to remove the whole and to keep corn from binding niacin. And it's like son of a gun, you know. How did these guys know all this? Well, they didn't want to feel sick. Get around it. All right.


Dr. Steven Gundry

So that's a short course in lectins.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Right? Yeah, I, I read your book when it first came out about, like, beans and, it actually helped my wife quite a bit. And I was just, you know, it didn't make. I mean, it made sense to me once I learned all of that. Right. And what you just walked us through. But when you know, you're first starting to look at it, you're like, wait, these foods are healthy?


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Like, why am I not supposed to be eating them? And so, and it did. It helped her, gut issues that, that she was having. And so it became very clear to me that, hey, this was a thing. And, you know, you mentioned soaking beans. It's funny because literally, my grandmother would do that, right? She would soak beans for like two days and, like, why are you doing this?


Dr. Brandon Crawford

This is what you don't. And, you know, when you ask her, it was because her mom did it and her mom did it, and, you know, this is passed on. Well, now, what do you do? You just put them in the pot. No one soaks beans anymore. And then, you know, everyone walks around with, inflamed gut and an inflamed brain, after they eat.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

So, so just to to shift a little bit because I'm, you know, I'm huge on light, a much on laser therapy and, and whatnot. But there's growing evidence that our microbiome, our gut health, our intestinal permeability markers, can actually be changed based on light exposure. Have you looked at how light can shape and have an impact on the microbiome and gut health?


Dr. Steven Gundry

Yeah, as as matter of fact, I've always once we learned about these guys, I've always told people that jet lag is actually caused by a change in the circadian rhythm of your gut microbiome, not you. And my wife and I don't could jet lag anymore. We'll actually, carry a little concoction of probiotics and polyphenols and just kind of load up before we leave and load up when we arrive.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And knock on wood, we don't have jet lag anymore. But so. And in light of exposure on the super nucleus is it's actually a very important true effect, that circadian rhythm. Interestingly, long ago I was a consultant to, lack of a better word to do good venture capitalist company out in New York City. And I won't mention the name, that, among other things, that invented and invested in a company out of Florida that was, one of the first to develop, a non blue light, light bulb for, you know, nursing mothers, for the bedroom, etc..


Dr. Steven Gundry

And this was when the evilness of Blue Light was first being talked about, and the, the, the head of this company in Florida and I started talking and because I was very interested in red lasers and red light therapy on the microbiome and on mitochondrial function, and he was a real wonderful nerd. He says, oh, yeah.


Dr. Steven Gundry

He says, you know, there's all these kind of cool papers on red light therapy and how it changes the microbiome. And, and, you know, red light laser on how it affects my mitochondrial function. He said, are you actually interested in that? I said, yeah, he said, oh, we should develop all these devices. And then so we went to this company, said, hey, you know, here's a, here's an area.


Dr. Steven Gundry

This was 20 years ago. This is an area we ought to really get into. And they go, wow, that's what a crazy idea. Nobody's going to do that. But you're right. There is just emerging now. People are actually going, hey, wait a minute. This is an area we should be interested in. So. So yes.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Yeah, I, I mean, I've definitely noticed huge, changes clinically now, a lot of that's anecdotal, but then we also see changes in labs. We see changes across the board. I like to think of photo by modulation as an accelerator. Right. And so it's going to accelerate neuroplasticity or, you know, it's going to help reduce inflammation so we can get change faster.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

And in, in that regard. Right. So I like to, you know, have a part of the routine, whether it's at home, whether it's in the clinic. Of course you don't have to buy, you know, an expensive laser. There's various LED panels. But then also we have this thing in the sky called the sun. And so that's free.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

So people, you know, they have access to, you know, different forms of, of light. They just need to, you know, understand it better and understand that there is I mean, there's research that shows specifically that 808 nanometers had a positive impact on the microbiome. So the research is out there. It's very, very compelling and growing and definitely something that we use on a daily basis, you know, working through patients.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

So something else, just to kind of shift a little bit, we're talking about, you know, kind of clinical stuff here. I'm also a huge fan of, vagus nerve stimulus. And, you know, we do it in various ways. But do you have an opinion on is this good? Should we be doing it? Should we not be doing it?


Dr. Brandon Crawford

What do you think about the, you know, 500 different products and probably more, that claim they do this? What are your thoughts here?


Dr. Steven Gundry

Yeah. I think, particularly the last few books. And you alluded to this when we started, when I was in medical school, the vagus nerve basically told the heart and the gut and the lungs what to do, what the brain wanted it to do. Using the sympathetic nervous system. And lo and behold, who would have guessed that for every one fiber in the vagus nerve, from the brain down to the gut, there's nine fibers that are going from the gut up to the brain.


Dr. Steven Gundry

So it was exactly the opposite of what we thought. And it is kind of one of the telephone lines from the gut microbiome to the brain. I think the other thing we thought when the idea of a second brain was that, well, there are a ton of neurons down in the gut, maybe they're talking to the brain. Well, they're merely receivers of information from the gut microbiome.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And I talk about in the book, one of the things that was shocking, I guess, was I was a general surgeon before I was a heart surgeon back in the dark ages, and we would treat ulcer disease by cutting the vagus nerve. And it was actually very effective. We got better at it, and we found that we only had to cut the vagus nerve fibers to the stomach rather than the rest of the belly, and achieve the same result.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Well, fast forward. So a lot of people have had they got amies for ulcer disease, and these people are now much older and lo and behold, in Parkinson's research it was discovered that people who had had a they got to me had 50% reduction in Parkinson's compared to people who had an economy and if you look at people who had just the big army to their stomachs and the rest of the vagus nerve was intact, there was absolutely no difference in Parkinson's.


Dr. Steven Gundry

So you go, wow, how did that work? And again, it's been worked out. For instance, we now know that Lectins bean can climb the vagus nerve and actually can target the substantia nigra just to bring up one thing. But it's also an amazing direct wire communication system between hey, there's mischief afoot down in the gut. And our immune system in the gut says, oh my gosh, we can't hold the line down here anymore.


Dr. Steven Gundry

We're being overrun by invaders. And, you know, call up on the phone to our buddies up in the brain, the glen, microglia and astrocytes. And it's like, arm yourselves, you know, put stuff in the way because the horde is on the way up. And, yeah.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

So that's interesting. Actually, I'm not familiar with that research. I want to go look at it.


Dr. Steven Gundry

That's that's right. Yeah. And and I actually referenced it in the last two books.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

It's nice.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Fascinating. It's like, Holy cow.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Yeah. Now that's very interesting. Well, would you say right, I'm a I'm a big neuroplasticity guy. Everything that we do is geared around developing positive neuroplasticity. Would you say that microbial diversity in the gut is basically a proxy for neuro, neuroplasticity?


Dr. Steven Gundry

Yeah. And we can go in, know deep and nerdy as you want, but we know even the the placental microbiome has a huge play in early development of the brain of the child of the fetus. And it's literally the microbiome and its product, which I call post biotics, that actually, you know, control in, epigenetic fashion. What's who's going to, you know, differentiate what connections are going to be made.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And even in early development, we know the the better you're microbiome, the more diverse your microbiome, the more the smarter you're going to be. The bigger your brain is, the more connections are made and there are some of us who really think that we just happen to be a vehicle for our microbiome, and that the microbiome is we are the home of our microbiome, and our microbiome merely uses us to go find what helps them out.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Or if there's bad guys in there, helps the bad guys out. I mean, bacteria have been around for 3 billion years. They're the most successful life form ever. It bothers people for me and others to say that bacteria are sentient beings. But they they clearly see not with eyes, but they know who's around them. They have this most sophisticated communication system between themselves and us.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And now, with the discovery of exosomes and extracellular vesicles, we know that bacteria and for that matter, plants and fungi, can actually send genetic codes to our genome to activate what they want our genome to do. And, you know, get over it. We should have we should have realized that this is such an incredible, sophisticated system that we're just now scratching the surface on it.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

So absolutely. Yeah. I love that you bring up exosomes and extracellular vesicles. That's a huge part of regenerative medicine that, I've been looking at for the past two years. Actually, we use, EVs clinically. And I'm actually looking at how different wavelengths of light can alter, extracellular vesicles and how they communicate, with stem cells and with other, cellular constituents.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

So definitely a huge interest of mine. But you're right, like, there's this whole communication system that, you know, we're just getting into, being able to understand. But there has to be so much more. And, you know, I think that even goes into the bio photon world, right? Where there's communication occurring via bio photons as well. Which is I mean, that's a whole quantum discussion that, you know, we can't even start at this point in time.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

I think that it's it's easy to understand that. Look, this is a complicated matter. There's a lot that goes into getting your gut right so that you can have overall health and wellness and achieve, you know, whether it's optimal performance or you're trying to, you know, work with, pathology or whatever. So for the the people listening, you know, they might be feeling a little overwhelmed.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

What's the first domino to knock over here? What should they start doing tomorrow?


Dr. Steven Gundry

Well, number one, the again, the University of California, San Diego thinks that the average American should be taking 10,000 international units of vitamin D3 a day. And I think that's a really good place to start. I do think if you're at all afraid of, quote, high dose vitamin D, then, you know, take some vitamin K2 with it.


Dr. Steven Gundry

It is quite protective. If you're really afraid of vitamin D, then stay on a low calcium diet. But I don't think that's a big worrisome thing. Number two stop swallowing razor blades. Temporarily. And number three, the more the the work from the Sonnenburg, if if it teaches us anything, is that. Yeah. Bacteria love to eat, fiber, particularly soluble fiber.


Dr. Steven Gundry

But there's a few insoluble fibers they like. But swallowing all the fiber in the world does not change your gut diversity and does not change, markers of inflammation from their research in humans. But the combination of soluble fiber with fermented foods, and in their experiments, they used yogurts and give fears. But fermented foods are vinegars. Believe it or not, after dark chocolate is a fermented food.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Good news. Coffee. Tea. Fermented food? Wine is a fermented food. Good news. So there's all the more, you know, kimchi, sauerkraut, the more firm centered foods. Cheese. A lot of cheeses are fermented foods that we get in our diet. The better. So that's kind of where to start. Those are the three things you can kind of start doing today to to really make a difference.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Yeah. Do you do you think everyone should just go out and start swallowing probiotics, or is there a certain thing that they should look forward? You have a certain product. What do you think there?


Dr. Steven Gundry

Yeah. Well it's interesting, when we years ago, not years ago, but a few years ago, we made a probiotic called 24 Strain Probiotic from Gundry, M.D., and it was based on my research of who really needs to be in that tropical rainforest. That probably isn't. And, it's encapsulated so it doesn't get digested by stomach acid.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And this was actually before we had really good microbiome test, and it was based on, animal research. Lo and behold, what tickles me is with my patients when we look at who's missing in, in their microbiome, it just it correlates so well with the 24 strain that I developed. And, you know, I go I think I sometimes it better be lucky than good.


Dr. Steven Gundry

But yeah, it was based on research. But then, now we've got all this human research and it's like, son of a gun. Those are part of the missing ingredient. So yeah. So 24 strain probiotic from Gundry, M.D..


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Absolutely.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Shameless plug. But it is interesting that the the my the research bears it out that those who have some of them it's you guys.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Absolutely. Yeah. And it's a phenomenal product. And you know you you you developed it with phenomenal intention and really good evidence based backed research there. So it's great. So for those that, you know, want to learn more about you, about your work, where can I go to learn more? I know, you know, you have your new book out, where do you want to point people to learn more?


Dr. Steven Gundry

Well, I can come to Doctor gundry.com or Gundry, MD, dot com. We just asked, a million subscribers to our YouTube channel. Not bad. And the Doctor Gundry podcast, wherever you get your podcasts, and hopefully I pop up on your feed, waving at you for a Gundry MD.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

So absolutely. I think the majority of my viewers already know of you. So, you know, I'm, I'm just so honored that you're on today, doctor Gundry. You're a true legend. Your impact in the world continues to grow. But already what you've done is just been, You know, so much for people suffering, but then also for those just wanting to optimize their health and wellness.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

So for everyone out there listening, if this information can help someone that you know and love, please share it with them. That's why we're having this conversation. That's why Doctor Gundry came in today, to talk with us. We're both here to help people. So please share this information. Disseminate. Disseminate it accordingly. Doctor Gundry, is there anything that you want to tell the world before we sign off here?


Dr. Steven Gundry

Well, somebody asked me. I just turned 75, two weeks ago, and one of my new patients said, geez, you know why I still see patients six days a week? He says, you don't have to see, you know, me or anybody else. So what are you doing at 75 doing this? I said, look, I get up every day fully expecting to see what I would have described to be as a miracle 30 years ago.


Dr. Steven Gundry

And basically, why wouldn't I get up if I knew I was going to see a miracle happen? So that's why I get up and see patients six days a week. But and on the seventh day, I'm a Gundry, M.D., so hoping to create new miracles.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Right. That's amazing. Life goals for me, man. I look up to you. I definitely want to strive to, you know, to be you one day in that same category. So I deeply appreciate you coming on here today. Thank you so much.


Dr. Steven Gundry

Thanks for having me. So let's make miracles.


Dr. Brandon Crawford

Absolutely.



Voice Over

We hope today's episode has inspired you to take that next step towards your best self. Remember, the path to longevity is paved with small daily decisions. Your journey is unique and every step, every choice brings you closer to your ultimate vision of a healthier, happier life. For more insights, tips and resources, visit Doctor Brandon crawford.com.


People on this episode

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Dr. Brandon Crawford

Host
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Dr. Steven Gundry, MD

Guest