so what I’m going to be doing is I’m
going to be talking about the microbiome
and whether you can eat yourself healthy
and you know I was trying to come up
with the title as you can see there were
a few attempts at that when you saw the
original draft slide deck and if I’m
honest quite a lot of my talk is going
to be about poo so this is really the
title of my talk the wonderful world of
Pig you have no idea how much poo we
have a laugh we have love just through
you know and the reason that I am
talking about poo and the microbiome is
now more than ever we are being
assaulted with headlines and self-help
sites and websites and programs
suggesting that the microbiome is the
core of a whole host of conditions and
if we could only change on microbiome we
would be where we would be less anxious
we would sleep better and the industry
in making things that can change a
microbiome is absolutely huge so I just
pulled these off the internet last week
but there are many many many more so
before I go any further what is the
microbiome it is the collection of
organisms that lives inside you but also
on you and that is a mixture of viruses
yeast funghi even some parasites and of
course bacteria and it’s the bacteria
that we know the most about so most of
the research is currently on bacteria
and the number that I’m showing you of
38 trillion is the number that has been
suggested to be the average number of
bacteria living on one person so each
one of you has 38 trillion bacteria
that’s big but we have seven point six
billion people on the planet so if I was
to draw the seven point six billion to
scale compared with one of your sets of
bacterial populations let’s have a look
and see what happens
can’t even see it we are dwarfed by our
bacteria and because we can have fun
with numbers let’s see how many bacteria
we have on everybody in the planet it’s
a lot isn’t it
I think it’s 2.9 times 10 to the 23 I
did have to check the zeros quite a lot
so it’s staggeringly huge how many
bacteria we have living inside us and on
us and they are doing so many crucial
things for our health they’re so diverse
and just to illustrate how diverse and
different they are I’m going to show you
this art piece here this is an M done by
an artist Mel Fisher what she does is
she makes agar sculptures that enable
her to then seed her own bacteria onto
them and you can see on this one here
you can see a whole host of different
colors and shapes of bacteria and if she
uses a different part of her skin or a
different agar mix she can get another
collection of microorganisms growing on
her sculpture so that gives you a little
taste of just how varied those microbes
are they’re doing amazing things they’re
protecting us from infection they’re
shaping and developing our immune system
they’re even helping us digest our food
and making vital vitamins we couldn’t
otherwise make on a mundane level we
have this may reduce how much we fart
everybody farts but we’d fart more if we
didn’t have gut bacteria
to see though and if you can light your
farts that’s because if you’ve got
bacteria to certain types of gut
bacteria make flammable gas not
everybody can do it so please don’t try
it at home and why are we so excited
about the bacteria well they are able to
confer super powers on us one example is
here this is a desert rat as you can
imagine it lives in the desert and there
isn’t really a great deal of food for it
to eat but something that grows well is
the creosote bush which is a very toxic
plant if it were to eat it normally that
would kill it however it can eat it very
very comfortably which is good because
it’s the most common type of food it’s
going to get and it turns out that it’s
all to do with its gut bacteria its
bacteria can break down the poisons and
make them safe if you give the rats
antibiotics it can’t eat the plant
anymore it will be killed that’s pretty
amazing people have even looked at the
difference in obesity so here we’ve got
I think you can guess which one it is we
have a very obese Mouse and it has a
vastly different gut bacteria to a thin
Mouse and if you do an experiment where
you take a mouse that is genetically
likely to get fat and you give it the
microbiome of a thin person that Mouse
doesn’t get fat it stays thin if you
give the thin one the microbiome of a
larger person it puts on weight so
that’s suggest again that the microbiome
can do things that make to be able to
change our biology and they can do
things that maybe we can log into and I
think that’s the type of thing that’s
led to this explosion and interest in
changing the microbiome so there’s two
main things that are done
and do you know what this is this is an
enema kit old and new I haven’t changed
much over the last 300 years and
essentially and there are some people I
won’t name them but you know who they
are Gwyneth who tell you that you should
flush out your toxins by having an enema
this will damage your gut it will remove
the layers of protection in your blood
your gut and also remove a lot of your
microbiota so I wouldn’t really
recommend it
another approach uses one of these it’s
called a fecal microbial transplant
basically you get the poo sample of the
person you’re interested in do I need to
go further pop it in the hopper in the
blender and you make a smoothie usually
it is administered using something like
the enema kit and usually don’t drink it
and there are self-help sites that tell
you how to do this it’s becoming a thing
also by weight by the way don’t buy
second-hand blender
now it may be becoming a thing but is it
a good idea apart from the obvious X
Factor
so unless you know the somebody’s been
screened before they give you your poo
sample you’re really really putting
yourself at risk of an infection also
there is another thing that we need to
point out it’s poo now I know it’s poo
who does contain microbes contain the
right microbes if we look all the way
down our guts we can see real variety in
the types and numbers of microbes that
we’ve got the stomach has been much less
all the way through to the large
intestine which has a really rich
diverse population and so is a poo
sample really capturing that diversity
and if you actually have a look at how
the gut is laid out what I’ve got here
is my big science slide if I the pointer
would be little easier so I’ll try and
talk you through it
on the left hand side I have a picture
of a gut biopsy and what we’ve done is
we’ve stained the section so that you
can see the host cells our own cells our
intestinal cells in blue with little
green blobs and then on the right hand
side you should be able to see a kind of
mixture of red and green in that image
and I’ve put a little cartoon at the
side of it to explain what everything is
and basically the epithelial cells are
cells that lie in our gut are making
mucus just like the mucus in your nose
the snot in your nose and that acts as a
barrier to prevent against infection
there also is the thick layer of mucus
and a lot of our bacteria quite like
living in there you then get a further a
population of bacteria that live just
outside that mucus layer now we and
others have analyzed two samples and
compared them to the bacteria we find in
the mucus and the two populations are
very very different
so this poo sample is not telling us
what’s in the mucus and we’ve been
looking in inflammation in disease and
we can see that the mucus bacteria
changed
very quickly in response to inflammation
where is the poo bacteria don’t change
at all so if you’re wanting to look at
things that might be important for our
hell we might need to be thinking again
about where we’re getting those bacteria
from and we still don’t know about all
the other guys in the microbiome the
viruses the funghi the parasites etc so
what can you do if you want to be
healthier as regards your microbiome
people who live long healthy robust
lives seem to have a very varied and
diverse microbiome people who live very
kind of frail lives are not very well as
they get older or they have a lot of
inflammatory conditions seem to have a
much less diverse microbiome much less
variety in the species that are found
there so that suggests that variety is a
good thing what can you do to have a
very gut microbiome well basically all
you need to do is have a varied diet
because the diet is the most important
thing that shapes on microbiome so a
diet that’s rich in prebiotic foods
pulses fruits vegetables you want
sources of protein you want sources of
carbohydrate you want you can even it
sort of supplement it with probiotics
like yogurts
are fermented foods but what you really
need is a good range of foods and what
this goes to show is that we are what we
thank you very much
[Applause]
going to be talking about the microbiome
and whether you can eat yourself healthy
and you know I was trying to come up
with the title as you can see there were
a few attempts at that when you saw the
original draft slide deck and if I’m
honest quite a lot of my talk is going
to be about poo so this is really the
title of my talk the wonderful world of
Pig you have no idea how much poo we
have a laugh we have love just through
you know and the reason that I am
talking about poo and the microbiome is
now more than ever we are being
assaulted with headlines and self-help
sites and websites and programs
suggesting that the microbiome is the
core of a whole host of conditions and
if we could only change on microbiome we
would be where we would be less anxious
we would sleep better and the industry
in making things that can change a
microbiome is absolutely huge so I just
pulled these off the internet last week
but there are many many many more so
before I go any further what is the
microbiome it is the collection of
organisms that lives inside you but also
on you and that is a mixture of viruses
yeast funghi even some parasites and of
course bacteria and it’s the bacteria
that we know the most about so most of
the research is currently on bacteria
and the number that I’m showing you of
38 trillion is the number that has been
suggested to be the average number of
bacteria living on one person so each
one of you has 38 trillion bacteria
that’s big but we have seven point six
billion people on the planet so if I was
to draw the seven point six billion to
scale compared with one of your sets of
bacterial populations let’s have a look
and see what happens
can’t even see it we are dwarfed by our
bacteria and because we can have fun
with numbers let’s see how many bacteria
we have on everybody in the planet it’s
a lot isn’t it
I think it’s 2.9 times 10 to the 23 I
did have to check the zeros quite a lot
so it’s staggeringly huge how many
bacteria we have living inside us and on
us and they are doing so many crucial
things for our health they’re so diverse
and just to illustrate how diverse and
different they are I’m going to show you
this art piece here this is an M done by
an artist Mel Fisher what she does is
she makes agar sculptures that enable
her to then seed her own bacteria onto
them and you can see on this one here
you can see a whole host of different
colors and shapes of bacteria and if she
uses a different part of her skin or a
different agar mix she can get another
collection of microorganisms growing on
her sculpture so that gives you a little
taste of just how varied those microbes
are they’re doing amazing things they’re
protecting us from infection they’re
shaping and developing our immune system
they’re even helping us digest our food
and making vital vitamins we couldn’t
otherwise make on a mundane level we
have this may reduce how much we fart
everybody farts but we’d fart more if we
didn’t have gut bacteria
to see though and if you can light your
farts that’s because if you’ve got
bacteria to certain types of gut
bacteria make flammable gas not
everybody can do it so please don’t try
it at home and why are we so excited
about the bacteria well they are able to
confer super powers on us one example is
here this is a desert rat as you can
imagine it lives in the desert and there
isn’t really a great deal of food for it
to eat but something that grows well is
the creosote bush which is a very toxic
plant if it were to eat it normally that
would kill it however it can eat it very
very comfortably which is good because
it’s the most common type of food it’s
going to get and it turns out that it’s
all to do with its gut bacteria its
bacteria can break down the poisons and
make them safe if you give the rats
antibiotics it can’t eat the plant
anymore it will be killed that’s pretty
amazing people have even looked at the
difference in obesity so here we’ve got
I think you can guess which one it is we
have a very obese Mouse and it has a
vastly different gut bacteria to a thin
Mouse and if you do an experiment where
you take a mouse that is genetically
likely to get fat and you give it the
microbiome of a thin person that Mouse
doesn’t get fat it stays thin if you
give the thin one the microbiome of a
larger person it puts on weight so
that’s suggest again that the microbiome
can do things that make to be able to
change our biology and they can do
things that maybe we can log into and I
think that’s the type of thing that’s
led to this explosion and interest in
changing the microbiome so there’s two
main things that are done
and do you know what this is this is an
enema kit old and new I haven’t changed
much over the last 300 years and
essentially and there are some people I
won’t name them but you know who they
are Gwyneth who tell you that you should
flush out your toxins by having an enema
this will damage your gut it will remove
the layers of protection in your blood
your gut and also remove a lot of your
microbiota so I wouldn’t really
recommend it
another approach uses one of these it’s
called a fecal microbial transplant
basically you get the poo sample of the
person you’re interested in do I need to
go further pop it in the hopper in the
blender and you make a smoothie usually
it is administered using something like
the enema kit and usually don’t drink it
and there are self-help sites that tell
you how to do this it’s becoming a thing
also by weight by the way don’t buy
second-hand blender
now it may be becoming a thing but is it
a good idea apart from the obvious X
Factor
so unless you know the somebody’s been
screened before they give you your poo
sample you’re really really putting
yourself at risk of an infection also
there is another thing that we need to
point out it’s poo now I know it’s poo
who does contain microbes contain the
right microbes if we look all the way
down our guts we can see real variety in
the types and numbers of microbes that
we’ve got the stomach has been much less
all the way through to the large
intestine which has a really rich
diverse population and so is a poo
sample really capturing that diversity
and if you actually have a look at how
the gut is laid out what I’ve got here
is my big science slide if I the pointer
would be little easier so I’ll try and
talk you through it
on the left hand side I have a picture
of a gut biopsy and what we’ve done is
we’ve stained the section so that you
can see the host cells our own cells our
intestinal cells in blue with little
green blobs and then on the right hand
side you should be able to see a kind of
mixture of red and green in that image
and I’ve put a little cartoon at the
side of it to explain what everything is
and basically the epithelial cells are
cells that lie in our gut are making
mucus just like the mucus in your nose
the snot in your nose and that acts as a
barrier to prevent against infection
there also is the thick layer of mucus
and a lot of our bacteria quite like
living in there you then get a further a
population of bacteria that live just
outside that mucus layer now we and
others have analyzed two samples and
compared them to the bacteria we find in
the mucus and the two populations are
very very different
so this poo sample is not telling us
what’s in the mucus and we’ve been
looking in inflammation in disease and
we can see that the mucus bacteria
changed
very quickly in response to inflammation
where is the poo bacteria don’t change
at all so if you’re wanting to look at
things that might be important for our
hell we might need to be thinking again
about where we’re getting those bacteria
from and we still don’t know about all
the other guys in the microbiome the
viruses the funghi the parasites etc so
what can you do if you want to be
healthier as regards your microbiome
people who live long healthy robust
lives seem to have a very varied and
diverse microbiome people who live very
kind of frail lives are not very well as
they get older or they have a lot of
inflammatory conditions seem to have a
much less diverse microbiome much less
variety in the species that are found
there so that suggests that variety is a
good thing what can you do to have a
very gut microbiome well basically all
you need to do is have a varied diet
because the diet is the most important
thing that shapes on microbiome so a
diet that’s rich in prebiotic foods
pulses fruits vegetables you want
sources of protein you want sources of
carbohydrate you want you can even it
sort of supplement it with probiotics
like yogurts
are fermented foods but what you really
need is a good range of foods and what
this goes to show is that we are what we
thank you very much
[Applause]
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