This episode is brought to you by ButcherBox and Athletic Greens.

Our gut is a powerful control center, due to its bidirectional communication with the brain, which we call the gut-brain axis. This links the emotional and cognitive centers of the brain with intestinal function. Certain conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), are tied to imbalances in the gut-brain axis and can benefit from taking a systems approach in healing, which includes looking at diet, the microbiome, stress management, and more.

In today’s episode, I talk with Dr. Todd LePine, Dr. Emeran Mayer, and Dr. George Papanicolaou about various root causes of irritable bowel syndrome, including microbiome imbalance, parasites, and stress.

Dr. Todd LePine graduated from Dartmouth Medical School and is board certified in Internal Medicine, specializing in Integrative Functional Medicine. He is an Institute for Functional Medicine certified practitioner. Prior to joining The UltraWellness Center, he worked as a physician at Canyon Ranch in Lenox, MA, for 10 years. Dr. LePine’s focus at The UltraWellness Center is to help his patients achieve optimal health and vitality by restoring the natural balance to both the mind and the body. His areas of interest include optimal aging, bio-detoxification, functional gastrointestinal health, systemic inflammation, autoimmune disorders, and the neurobiology of mood and cognitive disorders.

Dr. Emeran Mayer is the author of The Gut-Immune Connection as well as The Mind-Gut Connection. He has studied brain-body interactions for the last 40 years, is the executive director of the G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience, and is the founding director of the UCLA Brain Gut Microbiome Center at the University of California at Los Angeles. His research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health for the past 25 years, and he is considered a pioneer and world leader in the area of brain-gut microbiome interactions and its clinical implications.⁣

Dr. George Papanicolaou is a graduate of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and is board certified in Family Medicine from Abington Memorial Hospital. He is also an Institute for Functional Medicine practitioner. He worked on the Navajo reservation for four years at the Chinle Comprehensive Medical Facility, where he served as the Outpatient Department Coordinator. In 2000, he founded Cornerstone Family Practice in Rowley, MA. In 2015, he established Cornerstone Personal Health, a practice dedicated entirely to Functional Medicine. Dr. Papanicolaou joined The UltraWellness Center in 2017.

This episode is brought to you by ButcherBox and Athletic Greens.

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Full-length episodes of these interviews can be found here:

Dr. Todd LePine

Dr. Emeran Mayer

Dr. George Papanicolaou