6 Science-Backed Ways To Fix Your Gut | With a Microbiome Scientist

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

If high-interest credit card debt is keeping you up at night, you're not alone. Interest rates as high as 21% APR can do that to you. Rocket Mortgage can help. A home equity loan from Rocket Mortgage could cut your interest rate by more than half, so you could wipe out your high-interest credit card debt without touching your current mortgage rate. See how much you could save at rocketmortgage.com. Rocket Mortgage LLC, licensed in 50 states, and mlsconsumeraccess.org number 3030 Call 800-4-ROCKET for full program details.

SPEAKER_2 (0:31)

Ultra Running Shoes are all about space. The space to go further, to feel better, to do something you never thought possible. And this space starts with Ultra Fit. Unlike traditional running shoes, Ultra Fit gives toes more room to move naturally, so every step is strong, balanced, and comfortable. Whatever you're lacing up for, stay out there with Ultra. Shop now at ultrarunning.com. That's altrarunning.com.

Dr Faye Bate (1:00)

Women are being sold so many ways to fix their gut, but how much of it is actually real? Today, I'm asking Dr Emily Leeming, a gut microbiome scientist at King's College London and registered dietitian, what women actually need to know about their gut, because understanding your symptoms should feel clearer than the wellness industry makes it. We're gonna talk so much about bloating and gut health and practical ways that our listeners can improve their gut health. But first, your background is extremely interesting because you went from working as a chef to working in gut health. And I'm very passionate about making sure we discuss people's career routes, because I know so many women who are listening to the podcast are ambitious women trying to find their own path.

So can you tell me a little bit about how you've ended up where you are?

Dr Emily Leeming (1:50)

Yeah, I have a very unconventional beginning to academia, and I never ever thought I was gonna end up in research. It was never something that I even had in my brain that that would happen. So I was a chef on super yachts, so I was traveling around the world. This is pre below deck, but I feel like below deck has kind of, hopefully made all of us yachties look good, because it is a lot of hard work, but it's a lot of fun.

So I did that, and then I just got really, really curious about the science of what I was making. I was like, oh, I'm seeing these kind of reactions happening in the pan. But actually, what are the reactions then happening in the body as well? And a lot of the clients who I'm working for, they all were very interested in health. That was kind of my demographic, because I already had an undergraduate in nutrition. And then, funnily enough, read a book on the gut microbiome, Guts by Julia Enders, who's a gastroenterologist. Never heard of the gut microbiome before, and was just fascinated that we've got this collection of microbes that we need to look after in our gut. I think for many of us, if we remember Tamagotchis, it's kind of like that, we need to look after that. And that kind of really led me to go and do my masters as a dietician in Australia. So I moved to Melbourne and did it there.

And then did a research internship at King's while I was doing my masters in the holidays.

And then just got absolute, got the bug for research. And I've been at King's, did my PhD there in the gut microbiome and nutrition. And yeah, currently there and we're running the Eat Fibre study.

Dr Faye Bate (3:26)

Just to come back to your route, I think it's really interesting. When we talk about career paths, it's often described as you're either an architect or a explorer or an architect or a digger or something like that, where you either design, you pre-plan and you plan out what your career is gonna look like, or you're a digger where you just dig a little bit, enjoy something, go, oh, I'll dig a little bit further and then go, oh, I don't actually enjoy that and dig in a different direction.

And I think that from the sounds of it, your career seems like it was a real digger where you just, you followed your curiosity and followed your passion. I think that's a wonderful message. It seems to be a lot of pressure to have it all figured out. And that can take away sometimes from just following what you're interested in. So that's really, really interesting. I would love to now talk about Women's Gut Health specifically and a particular pain point that we seem to have with a lot of the listeners is understanding what's going on in their gut can change throughout the course of the month. Could you explain a little bit about what happens then?