Your microbiome is shaped by how you're born, how you live, the foods you eat, your medical history, lifestyle, age, and other risk factors. All of that will change your microbiome. - Raja Dhir

Wellness + Wisdom Episode 547

Raja Dhir, co-founder and co-CEO of Seed Health, joins Josh Trent on the Wellness + Wisdom podcast episode 547 to help you understand how important your bowel movement and excretion are in your everyday life and how synbiotics promote a healthy microbiome in your gut.

How do you maintain optimal gut health?

By the end of this episode, you'll understand how to recognize if your bowel movement is healthy, how synbiotics can help you optimize your microbiome, and why opportunistic organisms are a threat to your health.

30% Off Seed Daily Synbiotic

Use the code "JOSHTRENT" for 30% off

SEED'S DS-01® DAILY SYNBIOTIC FOR 18+ AGE GROUP

For Gastrointestinal + Whole-body Health

2-in-1 capsule-in-capsule probiotic and prebiotic. Formulated for adults ages 18+ with 24 clinically and scientifically studied probiotic strains and a polyphenol-based prebiotic to support systemic health.

BENEFITS BEYOND YOUR GUT HEALTH:

• Digestive Health
• Gut Barrier Integrity
• Gut Immune Function
• Cardiovascular Health
• Dermatological Health
• Micronutrient Synthesis

SEED'S PDS-08™ PEDIATRIC DAILY SYNBIOTIC FOR CHILDREN + ADOLESCENTS

Clinically studied 2-in-1 powdered synbiotic, formulated for children and adolescents ages 3-17 with 9 probiotic strains and a fiber-based prebiotic.

Designed with how-do-I-get-my-kid-to-take-this-daily in mind.

 

30% off first month of supply with "JOSHTRENT"

 

Listen To Episode 547 As Raja Dhir Uncovers: [01:30] Gut Health + Microbiome Optimization

• Seed - 30% off your first month's supply of DS-01 Daily Synbiotic with code "JOSHTRENT"
• Common misconceptions about gut health and microbiome.
• Mind Pump Media | Sal Di Stefano On Fatherhood
• How microbiome optimization works.
• Why microbiome diversity shouldn't be your only goal when it comes to gut health.
• The relation between food sensitivities and microbiome.

[09:30] Opportunistic Organisms + The New Model of Infection

• Why we talk about food but not where it goes.
• The health threats of opportunistic organisms in our gut.
• How the new model of infection is different from the old model.
• Why consumer tests are not reliable.
• How they test samples at Seed and keep discovering new organisms.

[21:25] The Benefits of Consuming Polyphenols

• Ara Katz
• How synbiotics work for your gut health.
• Why only 5% of polyphenols are absorbed into the bloodstream.
• Why fermented foods are not a substitute for prebiotics and probiotics.
• Pomegranate as a rich source of polyphenols.
• Why you shouldn't ignore gut problems.
• Paul Chek | All is God 3-Part Series

[31:45] Gut Motility Problems + Biological Clock Update

• The connection between gut motility and the nervous system.
• How gut mobility issues show in our bowel movement.
• Science vs spirituality.
• Why emulsifiers are bad for your gut health.
• How our immune system is taught to be tolerant.
• Why the immune system fascinates Raja.
• How the microbiome updates our biological clock.

[57:35] Gut-Brain Axis: Mental Health + Gut Connection

• Gut-brain axis: why people with depression have different organisms in their microbiome.
• Discovering cancer in patients from blood samples.
• How stool samples can help predict depressive disorders.
• Unpacking how Seed's DS-01 helps with the gut microbiome recovery after alcohol consumption.
• The function of the metabolite p-Cresol.

Power Quotes From The Show Microbiome As a Dynamic Ecosystem

"Because the microbiome is so unique people think that they need something individualized for them otherwise there's no hope of changing it. It's actually not true. It's a very dynamic ecosystem and it's highly personalized. There're dietary recommendations that would be the same for everyone." - Raja Dhir

Optimizing Gut Microbiome

"Everyone's optimizing for something else. Everyone has different methods and until everyone's looking at the same information set, using the same methods, it's really hard to compare the quality of different data sets. The better way to do it is to functionally understand what your microbiome is doing.

Is it making a lot of organic acids? Does it have a lot of organisms that have genes that we know are positive for fiber degradation or converting dietary nutrients or are inflammatory or help to rebuild the gut barrier? This is the level that we're at. We're looking at really clear features and trying to look at the prevalence of those features in different people vs their absence in others." - Raja Dhir

Healthy Bowel Movement

"Most people just learn over life to cope and assume that bowel movement an irregular, unpredictable, and even potentially something that requires force. You should have little to no strain, ease of expulsion, manageable to no amounts of persistent gas, you shouldn't have bloating, and you shouldn't have many sensitivities to diverse plant matters, especially roughage.

If you go through that simple checklist and then compare that to the Bristol stool chart, and see your stool quality coming out (the color, the shape, the texture, the hydration( those are your best indicators. Anything that you do beyond that is about optimizing. This is the day-to-day thing you should ask yourself because that's your first signal for how the whole system is functioning." - Raja Dhir

Links From Today's Show 

• Seed - 30% off your first month's supply of DS-01 Daily Synbiotic with code "JOSHTRENT"
• Mind Pump Media
• Ara Katz
• Paul Chek
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About Raja Dhir

A life sciences entrepreneur, Raja Dhir has unique expertise in translating scientific research including scaling up both facultative and strict anaerobic organisms. He leads R&D, academic collaborations, manufacturing, technology development, and IP strategy.

Together with Dr. Jacques Ravel, Raja chairs Seed’s Scientific Advisory Board—a group of globally-renowned scientists and doctors in the microbiome field. Raja has designed clinical trials with leading academic institutions including the teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and the Trial Innovation Unit of Mass. General Hospital (MGH) is actively developing technologies with academic labs for the oral microbiome (Harvard) and skin microbiome (UCLA).

He also founded and oversees SeedLabs to develop novel applications for bacteria to solve complex ecological problems, most recently inventions to protect honeybee populations (Apis mellifera) from neonicotinoid pesticides and pathogen colonization.

Raja has negotiated multiple joint ventures, strategic partnerships, technology transfer, and licensing agreements with publicly traded companies (NYSE, LSE) and academic institutions (Harvard Medical School, NYU, UCLA), and serves on the Board of Directors for the Microbiome Therapeutics Innovation Group (MTIG), an organization that works directly with the FDA on the regulation of microbe-based therapies.

His work has been recognized in CNBC’s Upstart 100, TIME’s 2018 Best Inventions, Forbes, Fast Company, BBC, TechCrunch, Barron's, Xconomy, Boston Business Journal, and Business Insider.