These 3 Gut Bacteria Keep Kills Cancer & Heals Your Gut! Eat This to Get Them! I Dr. William Li

[00:00:00]Most people think probiotics are just for digestion, gut health. But specific bacteria in your gut can have a powerful effect on the rest of your body, on your metabolism, on your immune system, and even on how your brain functions. Here's the key. Not all probiotics can do this.

[00:00:15]Not all probiotics are the same. You ever go to a drugstore, huge wall of probiotics, it's really [music] hard to know what to choose. I want to talk about three specific healthy bacteria that you can get as probiotics. 39 trillion out there. Three are standouts that I want to talk about today because they've been studied in humans with beneficial effects. This is not nice to have. This could be mustave. Could be a difference between life and death.

[00:00:52]Let's start by talking a little bit about bacteria because when I went to medical school, I was taught that bacteria are bad because bacteria cause disease. Well, it turns out that most of the bacteria that we encounter in our lives are beneficial and these bacteria are partly responsible for our health.

[00:01:09]And more than a century ago, a Nobel Prizewinning scientist named Ilia Mchnikov observed that people who were eating fermented foods like yogurt, specifically he was looking at Bulgarian monks who seem to get really, really old and healthy all at the same time, they lived longer, healthier lives. He proposed that the reason that they were able to live longer and healthier is because they were eating beneficial bacteria in their yogurt and that that was responsible for their longevity. So that is a little bit of history goes way back. All right? But modern science gives us an explanation of what might be going on. So let's talk about that because we can now identify specific strains among those 39 trillion bacteria. We're just at the tip of the iceberg where we're beginning to identify specific strains that can be beneficial. And once we know these strains, we can grow them up. We can study them in the lab. And we can also study their effects in humans as well.

[00:02:04]particularly when you can actually make the bacteria into probiotics. That's really important. This is an entirely new frontier of modern medical research looking at the microbiome. Now, from all this, we're learning something really important, which is that not all probiotics are the same. You ever go to a drugstore or a health food store and you look at a huge wall of probiotics, it's really hard to know what to choose.

[00:02:27]And they're all different. The strains, the dose, how it's manufactured, okay?

[00:02:32]and uh whether it's actually it's been studied in humans. These are all factors that are very important to consider when you're trying to identify a probiotic that you want to take. Does it have a meaningful effect? All right? And just like any product you want to put inside your body, quality matters. You want to know that you want something that's high quality before you actually put it inside your body. So if you're considering probiotics, okay, it's very important to understand something about the bacteria. Are you getting the right bacteria, the healthy bacteria that's in there? It's important to know the manufacturer. Does the person, does a group, does the company making or selling this uh probiotic? Do they have a good reputation? Are they transparent about how they actually produce this probiotic? Have they had a warning issued to them from the FDA? These are really important things from a safety perspective. And then knowing the bacteria, knowing the quality of the manufacturer, you want to know, does it work? You know, is there any clinical evidence that it works? This is what I always go for. Uh I look for the human evidence. So, let's take a look at three specific bacteria with benefits that I'm going to call out on this video. Are you ready? Let's go. The first bacteria that you can get as a probiotic is called acromancia. You've probably heard me talk about this one before. The full name of the bacteria is acromancia mucusinophilia. Now, this is a healthy bacteria that naturally grows in our gut, our lower gut. Okay? Um, and it's a pretty newly discovered bacteria.

[00:03:58]Honestly, scientists only discovered it in 2004. All right, so it's a recent breakthrough. We're still learning what this healthy bacteria does. But here's what we do know. Acromancia lives in your colon. That's the lower part of your gut. It lives right alongside the lining of your intestines. And it feeds on a normal, healthy layer of mucus that your gut produces. Now, why does your gut produce mucus? You want to slide food and digested food stool right smoothly down through your gut. So there's normally mucus there. Acromancia lives there and feeds on this mucus. Now what does the mucus do? Uh the mucus actually protects the barrier of your gut lining. And this is really important. When the bacteria eat the mucus, a signal for your gut to produce more mucus. More mucus means more protection. So this is one of the many rules of acromancia. It helps to protect your gut barrier. Now why is gut barrier important? Well, think about it. The gut is like a garden hose, okay? It's a tube. And in inside that hose is all your digested food ultimately turns into poop. Right? Now imagine like a garden hose, whatever you're putting in through the garden hose, the water is going to go all the way through and sprayed out the other end like our gut does. All right? But imagine if the lining of the garden hose wasn't intact. Meaning you actually had leaky garden hose. Let's say you took a nail and you punctured lots of hole in the garden hose. Now what's going to happen when you put fluid through it? Stuff's going to leak out, right? Same as the deal as a gut.

[00:05:25]If you have leaky gut, the cells that are keeping the integrity, the lining of your gut uh tight, actually loosen up, you got holes in it, what happens? Stuff leaks out. When stuff leaks out of your gut, particularly your lower gut, think about that. That's digested food on its way to becoming stool feces. That's really bad because it leaks out into the cavity of your body called the abdomen, the paritinium. That causes inflammation. So leaky gut, which is very uncomfortable. All right? Many people experience this actually is a really terrible thing that sets up for chronic inflammation. So acromancia one of the very important things it does it eats the mucus uh it lives in the colon eats mucus uh that your gut normally produces and gut responds by making more mucus which protects the gut lining. No gut leakage means lower no inflammation.

[00:06:13]The other thing acromancy does is actually communicates with your immune system. 70% of your immune system actually lives inside the wall of your gut inside the wall of that garden hose.

[00:06:22]So in addition to helping to keep the gut sealed tight, acromancia helps to support and activate your immune system.

[00:06:29]And this is turning out to be very important in the fight against cancer because your immune system plays a pivotal role in healthy days when you don't have cancer. It's actually conducting surveillance is patrolling your body like a cop on a beat patrolling a quiet neighborhood. Uh make sure everything is fine and looking if there's any signs of trouble. Okay, trouble in this case in your body are cancer cells, microscopic cancer cells that might be growing and lurking around, acromancy talks to your immune system and helps your immune system conduct that surveillance to look for the bad guys. Okay, very important. And by the way, when you actually need your immune system ramped up against cancer, acromancia plays a role as well. Going to talk about that in just one second.

[00:07:09]But first, can you grow your own acamancia? The answer is yes. Acromancia thrives when you eat certain foods that contain polyphenols called elagitanins.

[00:07:18]These elagitanins which you find in foods like pomegranates, conquered grapes, cranberries and walnuts for example. Okay, food is medicine. These elagotanins help prompt your uh gut to secrete more mucus which the acromancia eats which then stimulates more mucus which protects the gut and more and feeds more acromancia. Okay. And basically this is one way that you can grow your own acromancy. You can eat foods that will support it. Now how did acromancia enter really the limelight?

[00:07:47]Well, it's basically from cancer researchers and the research on acromancia cancer is literally jaw-dropping. In fact, when I heard it, my jaw dropped. All right. One of the world's leading researchers on this, Dr. Laurance Zipogle in Paris at the Institute Gustaf Rousi was studying cancer patients being treated with immunotherapy. This is not chemo. These are cancer treatments that um rely on your own immune system, activate your own immune system to go after the cancer. So, it's you treating you in a way. It's kind of the most natural way to [snorts] to defend and treat cancer.

[00:08:20]And what she found is that those patients, cancer patients who had higher levels of acromancia in their gut were more likely to respond to treatment.

[00:08:29]Okay? And those who didn't have any acromancy were unlikely to respond.

[00:08:32]Right? So, this is not nice to have.

[00:08:35]This could be mustave. could be a difference between life and death. What type of amunotherapies for those of you who are interested in this? Specific amunotherapies have been studied called checkpoint inhibitors. All right, immune immune checkpoint inhibitors. It's a class of imunotherapy. Um I will do a separate video about imunotherapies at some point. But again, acromancia is a critical gut bacteria that helps our body, our immune system, uh, ramp itself up so that when you get imunotherapy, specifically checkpoint inhibitors, it helps your immune system go after the cancer. Really important. We're not done yet with acromancy. Acromancy does another thing. It affects your metabolism in a beneficial way. It produces short- chain fatty acids called propionate. That's one of the short chain fatty acids or scaffas.

[00:09:22]Produces this metabolite. And guess what? That gets converted into another metabolite called butyrate. And butyrate is really important. Butyrate in your gut, okay, which is made from propriionate, which is made by acromancia, all right, which you can grow by eating foods that feed it, okay?

[00:09:39]Or you can get a probiotic that will actually do that. The butyrate actually stimulates your body's own GLP1.

[00:09:47]Now, you've heard of GLP-1. It's a hormone that regulates appetite, helps natural weight loss, and also can help your blood sugars normalize. So, acromancia actually can help your body produce its own natural GLP-1. Same pathway that is controlled by medications like ompic and wgoi, the GLP1 agonist, but your body can activate this pathway in its home. Not the same way or the same potency as a drug, but acromancia does the job by itself. Now, food is medicine. So, you know that you can eat these foods. pomegranates, conquered grapes, cran dried cranberries. I say dried cranberries because whole fresh cranberries are really really tart. You're probably not going to want to do it unless you add a ton of sugar to it and I don't recommend that. But dried cranberries, easy to eat. Then you get the dietary fiber as well and walnuts ways to grow your acromancia. But you can also have acromancy through a probiotic because recently the manufacturers like pendulum have found a way to create this very difficult to grow healthy gut bacteria called acromanc. I could put it into a probiotic pill. I actually take it myself, but I also take the food as medicine part to actually amplify things as well. Most people don't realize how specific the microbiome really is and how much it can influence your metabolism, your immune defenses, your cancer defenses, and even your brain function. So, if you want to understand how to use the science, subscribe to my channel because this is exactly what I break down here. How gut bacteria and food as medicine can be useful for your overall health and longevity. Second bacteria I want to talk about called Lactobacillus plantarum. P L A N T A R U M. Lactobacillus plantarum. Now this is a probiotic as well. Okay, it's a member of a large family of beneficial bacteria called Lactobacilli.

[00:11:29]Okay, in fact it's one of the best known healthy bacteria strains. You can almost certainly find Lactobacillus plantarum in your whole yogurt. Okay, now there's a lot of different types of lactobacillus. All of them have their own kind of superpowers in the gut for your health. But specifically, Lactobacillus plantarum has been shown to have some very specific benefits.

[00:11:50]Number one, it supports the gut uh environment. And and by the way, when you have it as a probiotic, it'll support stomach acid. You eat it, it will make it all the way past your digestive enzymes into your lower gut, which is where it's going to do its job.

[00:12:02]Now this is where things get exciting because Lactobacillus plantarum has been shown to produce a new substance that was discovered called plantarisin.

[00:12:12]Plantarisin [clears throat] is a natural antibiotic that can modify and help shape the makeup of your gut bacteria. Right? Antibiotics kind of alter the bacterial makeup in order to make your gut overall healthier. So here's a bacteria that produces a antibacteria, an antibiotic that then shapeshifts your gut bacteria. So the neighborhood is overall healthier. Where else do you get lactobacillus plantarum besides yogurt? Well, you can find it often in fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, fermented olives, which is a traditional Greek way of actually preparing olives to eat. But this video is about probiotics. I want to tell you about a specific strain of plantarum called PS128. Lactobacillus plantarum PS128. because this strain specifically as a probiotic has been studied and has beneficial effects on brain health which I think is really amazing. So clinical studies were done by researchers where PS128 was given to people who had Parkinson's disease and what was really remarkable is that those patients with Parkinson's who took PS128 had clinical improvements in their Parkinson's symptoms. Now, for people with Parkinson's, you know, the symptoms are one of the worst and most uncomfortable things to actually have and there are sometimes you don't have any other treatment options for it.

[00:13:28]Turns out that the gut microbiome can actually have a beneficial effect. What kind of effect? Better movement, speed, less muscle stiffness, better coordination, and by the way, also improve sleep, which is a problem in people who have Parkinson's, and better all overall quality of life. These are meaningful outcomes. one probiotic PS18 can actually do this in a clinical study. That to me is noteworthy. Okay, it's basically also tells you the gut brain connection is indeed something that's real and important. So, if you're like me, okay, you're going to be asking, all right, that's interesting.

[00:14:01]Lactobacillus plantarum PS128 um seems to have a benefit. How does it work?

[00:14:07]We're still trying to figure this out.

[00:14:08]What we think PS128 does is that it improves the dopamine pathways. This is the reward pathway but the movement pathways in the brain and it lowers brain inflammation at the same time.

[00:14:19]More dopamine which is what you need for Parkinson's and less inflammation which you want to have anyway. And we also think that lactobacillus plantarum activates the vagus nerve. This is one of the largest nerves in your body connects your brain to your gut. And we know that this is actually one of the telephone cables where uh your gut bacteria sends text messages to your brain. So, we think that this probiotic PS128 has beneficial effects that go way beyond the digestive benefits and general gut health, but specifically can actually have an effect on brain health.

[00:14:51]This is kind of targeted biology. We're still understanding the targets, but I think it's really exciting. And so, here's a common bacteria you can get as a probiotic that's been studied to improve brain health. Third bacteria, probiotic, lactobacillus rutery. Lutery, ru t. This is another member of the Lactobacillus family. I've done research on lactobacillus rutery myself commonly found in the human gut microbiome. But once antibiotics were developed actually it started to become less common. Also changes in the modern diet and this is the bacteria that we actually want and need but it's becoming less and less present. So targeted probiotics means that we can actually restore this particular microbe that we might not have enough of. Good news is that you can find lactobacillus rutery in your food. Okay. Not in huge quantities, but you can find in your food. Food is medicine. Which ones? Well, you might be surprised. Fermented foods like yogurt sometimes will have it. Sourdough made with lactobacillus rutery. Okay. And by the way, some traditionally aged cheeses like parmesano reo will also have some lactopus rutery. Now, these are pretty broad dietary sources. Um, they will have other things that are in them like sodium and things you want to watch out for. Um, so diet is not the best and it's certainly not the only way to get lactobacos rutery and you can get it as a probiotic which is what we're talking about here. So I've studied this bacteria lactobacillus ruterite in the lab with colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and there's research that's shown that eludory can improve wound healing. So it heals you from the inside out and the research also shows it improves the appearance of your skin. You have more glowing skin.

[00:16:28]You get better metabolism, better glucose utilization, less inflammation, stronger immunity, can also even help brain signaling to help the brain produce the social hormone oxytocin. And by the way, El Ruter is also good for gum health. Now, gum health, you know, your teeth sit in gums. Gum health is not only important for dental health, but it turns out we now have realized that when your gum health isn't bad, it's actually linked to heart disease and brain disease as well. All right, neurodeeneration. So good gut means starting your mouth. Good gums means good heart and good brain. Uh really really important. So you don't want to have gingivitis which is inflammation in the gums and lactobacillus rutery can lower in gum inflammation and improve overall gum health. In fact, randomized controlled clinical trials conducted in Europe and around the world show that lactobacos rutery is actually a good targeted probiotic for lowering gum inflammation for improving plaque uh on your teeth and reducing bleeding from the gums in people who have gingivitis.

[00:17:29]So how does this work? Well, remember I told you about lactobacus plantarum producing a an antibiotic. Well, guess what? Lactobacus ruteride does the same thing. produces its own natural antibiotic called ruterin. Amazing, right? Bacteria produces an antibacterial. What that does is that the bacteria, the good bacteria produces the antibiotic that suppresses the harmful bacteria on your gums and it allows our body to rebuild a healthier ecosystem. Sounds pretty complicated, but really quite remarkable as well.

[00:18:00]Okay. So, the next time you hear somebody talking about probiotics, you know the question to ask them. What specific bacteria are you talking about?

[00:18:07]Right? Some bacteria can influence your immune system and how it responds. Some can influence your metabolism and some can even influence how your brain function. And that's the concept of targeted probiotics. It's not just a shotgun. Good for your digestion. We're really beginning to take a look at specific bacteria with specific clinical outcomes. It's kind of how we do drug development, but we're now using uh bacteria, healthy bacteria uh in that analysis. Still a lot more to learn.

[00:18:33]There's still emerging data on acromancia, lactobacillus plantarum, and lactobacillus rutery. I have not told you everything because we don't know everything yet, but I've given you enough clues about these three bacteria that you can get as probiotics to give you a head start when it comes to thinking about what kind of probiotics should you consider. Now, if you want to stay ahead of the science and learn about how to use food and the microbiome and healthy bacteria like probiotics to support your health, make sure you subscribe to this channel. I will keep bringing you the latest evidence and show you how it applies to your health.

[00:19:04]See you in the next video. Hey, if you like that video, then you're going to love this one. Check it out.