Dr Jenna: But I suspect we're sort of scratching the surface of what our current environment might be doing in terms of a lot of the rising diseases that we see, so metabolic disease, inflammatory disease, autoimmune disease and allergies. And so I think that we shouldn't be scared or overwhelmed, but we can make choices with what we buy, with how we vote, and with how we support our body's ability to remove some of these toxic products through sort of diet and lifestyle choices that we make.
Dr Rupy: I'll be honest, that that does scare me. Welcome to The Doctor's Kitchen podcast. The show about food, lifestyle, medicine and how to improve your health today. I'm Dr Rupy, your host. I'm a medical doctor, I study nutrition and I'm a firm believer in the power of food and lifestyle as medicine. Join me and my expert guests where we discuss the multiple determinants of what allows you to lead your best life.
Dr Rupy: Today's episode is all about how to strengthen your immune system and it is epic. We chat about how the immune system evolves, how a strong immune system is determined by nutrition, stress and the interplay of our environment, as well as practical tools. It's a really practical session today where I talk to Jenna about supplements, foods to strengthen your immunity, looking at your environment and her opinions on a bunch of things that I've been thinking a lot more about over the last couple of months. Dr Jenna, if you if you don't know, she's been on the podcast a couple of times now, talking about everything to do with inflammation and the immune system. She is an expert immunologist with over 20 years experience and she specialises in understanding how nutrition and lifestyle interact with the immune system in health and disease and is on a mission to break down the science behind our health and share the secrets of how to be well. And she's done that really, really well in her latest book called Your Blueprint for Strong Immunity. I highly, highly recommend it. Today, we're talking about loads of things, creating an immunobiography and immunometabolism and its relationship to our mitochondria, the damage that excess sugar can have on immunity, whilst looking at it through the lens of practical things that you can do to mitigate against that. We also look at specific supplements such as zinc, vitamin C, garlic and even N-acetylcysteine, which is a medication that we use in in various medical circumstances. We also talk about food a lot today, which is obviously the subject that I want to talk about most, oregano oil, honey, different types of winter spices and how they protect us from viruses via something called quorum sensor inhibition, beta glucans that we find in mushrooms, cruciferous vegetables and their antioxidant activity. And we also talk a bit about our home environment and reducing body burden, which you're going to learn all about today on the podcast. It's a packed episode. Like I said, you'll love Jenna's book on immunity. She's got two and the latest one I think is brilliant as well. And our podcast recipe of the week, something that we're doing every week now, is a recipe that reflects the topic of conversation today on the pod. And as we talked about mushrooms so much, I had to include my mushroom bourguignon. You can find it on the app or if you're a newsletter subscriber, you'll find it on the newsletter that goes out this week. The app is only available for iPhone users, I'm sorry, Android users, I am really working hard on an Android version that should be out later on in 2022, but you can download the app in the link in the show notes that you can see on your podcast player wherever you're listening to this. Anyway, I'm going to stop talking now because this is a jam packed episode. Please do enjoy my conversation with Dr Jenna Macciochi. I'm using the book as a stand at the moment. It's under here, but it's propping up my mic at the moment, but I've I've read it and I've like taken a ton of notes from it and stuff. So I'm really excited to to talk to you about everything to do with that because you've already written an immunology book or a book on the immune system and how it forms and stuff. So I was like, what you've pretty much written everything, like how much more is there to write? But I was really blown away by all the content there. I just think it's it's brilliant and the way you've done a deep dive into some of the nutrients and individual ingredients, it just makes it really tangible and accessible for the reader. So, so well done.
Dr Jenna: Oh, thank you. Yeah, it was um a challenge to make the book like stand alone and not something that people would have to have necessarily read the first one. But they kind of I wanted them to be also complementary. So if you have read the first one, it's it's complementing that. And I think the second's a little bit more practical. I feel like it's um it was the book I needed to read. I don't know if you've found that as writing books yourself. It's almost like um sometimes I need a practical guide because I'm you know, my head is full of all the theory, but I'm not very good at always putting that into, you know, tangible real life things in my day to day life. So I kind of wanted to write it with a lot of compassion for people who are also struggling with those healthy habits because it's not easy, is it?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I know, exactly. I think having some like concrete tangible tasks that you can sort of implement into your routine day by day, I think is is really good. But the I think it's one of the reasons why people listen to this podcast and people follow me as well is because there's that foundation of evidence base and people love to get geeky and you know, think about why as a motivating factor for how they can practically put that into their day to day. So and you've you've intertwined that beautifully. It's it's really well written.
Dr Jenna: Thank you.
Dr Rupy: So why don't we talk about what shapes our immunity? Um I I guess that's a really nice way to to start in terms of, you know, the immune system and this this discussion and and framing all the other things that I I really want to talk about.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, I think that's a good uh place to start, especially given the last two years with COVID. It's like I've been in this field for a while and writing for the media for a while and then suddenly it got very noisy with COVID and I was like, oh, writing and talking about the immune system is very difficult suddenly. Um but I always want people to appreciate that the the immune system is a sensing system. It's quite similar to our brain in that way because and it works hand in hand with our brain to really sense what's going on in your environment and it's looking for certain inputs which is going to shape its function and then help it decide what's an appropriate way to respond. So I always like to think of it as being shaped by things we can control and things we can't control. So the things we can control are sort of the more obvious things like what we're putting into our body. So that would be nutrition, the types of um micronutrients, so the the vitamins and minerals, the macronutrients, but also like the timing of meals, when we're eating, um that sort of thing as well. And then movement, so that's a really important input for our immune system. So how we move our body in our day to day life. Um and then something that I'm really passionate about is things like muscle mass, how much um muscle strength and mass we we have as we age. Um then there are things like, you know, sleep, rest, uh our stress response, uh and other environmental exposures. So um where abouts you live, what your geographical location, it might determine how much sort of sunlight you get, um it might determine how much pollution you're exposed to. Uh so all of these kind of things are are shaping the immune system and it's not a static thing. We tend to think about our immune system, but the immune system we have today might look different to five years ago when we maybe had a different lifestyle, lived somewhere else, had a different kind of uh daily um patterns to our behaviors. Uh and then there's the other things that we can't control. So that would be, you know, the certain genetic uh basis of of how our immune system functions and that's quite complicated to unpick. Um and then, you know, other things that are less sort of tangible to change would be, you know, there's there's links between things like socioeconomic status, um and how your immune system performs. So it's a really complicated system and I I would always caution people who see messages around the immune system that are very simplistic to, you know, just cast a critical eye because nothing is ever that simple as I've discovered when it comes to this system.
Dr Rupy: Absolutely. You've beautifully described uh all the different uh uh things that shape your immune system in about two minutes, which is which is awesome. I want to I want to drill down into um into some of the concepts actually, uh particularly around COVID because this concept of immunometabolism, um I think is it's a pertinent conversation to have. It's an uncomfortable one in lots of ways because I think there's a lot of blame associated with uh weight and uh a misunderstanding of the drivers behind weight maintenance, weight loss, etc. We've discussed a lot of these different pathways on the on the on the podcast before, but I think through the lens of uh the immune system, it would be wonderful to to talk a bit more about that.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, I think this is uh a field that's kind of emerged maybe in the last five years, this immunometabolism and it really reflects something that we've known for a very long time but haven't quite joined the dots with and that's, you know, if you get a fever because you have an infection, so think of the last time you got flu or maybe if someone's had COVID and felt quite unwell and you had a fever, your basal metabolic rate, your kind of resting metabolic rate will rise maybe um 10 to 15% during the time that you've got that fever. And that reflects the actions of the communication molecules from your immune cells acting on your brain, changing your your um thermoregulation, changing your metabolism in order to provide the fuel for that immune response. So we know from from from just looking at what happens during infection that we've got this really um uh direct communication between what the immune system is doing and your metabolism because one is supporting the other. So you the your metabolism is fueling the immune cells. Um and then we also know that having inflammation, which is a response of your immune system, can also affect your metabolism. So there's this kind of bidirectional relationship. And we also know that um when it comes to body weight, and this was something I wanted to really try and get across in the book because I think it's we use body mass index as a a kind of metric to determine someone's size, which is useful for certain, you know, population studies to get a gauge, but as anyone will know if they've ever had their BMI measured and maybe they're like an athlete or something or they're very tall, broad person, they might have a BMI that sits them in what we would call an at risk weight category when they're actually quite healthy. It's more about your body composition. So what is your body made up of? And we know that fat and muscle are really immunologically active tissues. So they're full of different immune cell populations. And when our body composition gets skewed, so we end up with um larger amounts of fat and maybe reducing amounts of muscle, then the immune system cell populations that are living in those tissues are also skewed and this can lead to this low grade chronic inflammation, which I'm sure many people will have heard of is not a good thing and it seems to be a proxy for pretty much every type of chronic disease that um has been explored. So then when you have this low grade inflammation, you're also changing your metabolism again to fuel that inflammatory response. So you get into this kind of vicious cycle.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. And in terms of BMI being a crude measure of of weight and and health that we're trying to move away from, but I guess the reason why it's so ubiquitous is because it's just so easy to do and very accessible for a lot of people. Where would you say we should be moving towards when it comes to measuring body composition? Um you know, I I've heard a lot about DEXA scan, there's there's a bunch of other tools and and things. In your eyes, do you think everyone should really know what their composition is as as a way of, you know, knowing where they're they're moving in terms of the direction of of um of health?
Dr Jenna: That's a really interesting question and I think certainly as we get older, so we know that muscle mass is quite uh uh expensive tissue for our bodies to hold on to. So if we don't use our muscles, we're not going to retain them and and sarcopenia, which is this kind of age related decline in muscle mass happens as we get older. So from about our 30s, every decade, we're at higher risk of losing our muscle mass, which is kind of the anti-inflammatory component of our body composition. So I think certainly in your 40s and 50s, you might want to be thinking about building that muscle bank account and trying to offset the inevitable age related um reduction in muscle mass. Um and I think things like DEXA scan is is is a really good way to to get that. Some people might be able to do that through their GP or through their local gym or um if they're working with a fitness uh professional, but it might not be something that's accessible to everyone. So there's different measurements that can sort of help uh us understand the the sort of body composition, things like waist to hip ratio and waist to height ratio. So these are measurements you can just find online and and plug in your different metrics and it will give you a range and you can check to see where where you sit in terms of what's sort of relatively healthy. But I just think that the more research that comes out in terms of chronic diseases that are linked to inflammation, the more that muscle mass, muscle function just is this thing that comes up again and again and again. And we know that working our muscles is producing certain immune messengers, so these communication molecules that are actually offsetting some of our inevitable age related decline in immune function anyway. So it's really, really like the biggest anti-aging thing I can think of for people who want to um age well and and we know that as we get older, our immune cells decline. Get your muscles moving. You know, it's it's in um most uh physical activity guidelines that we should be doing at least two resistance based sessions per week, so putting resistance on your muscles. But I feel like that really plays second fiddle to the cardio. So we all know that we should be getting our heart rate up, we should be, you know, aiming for a certain number of steps or, you know, doing some of that physical activity that involves, you know, jumping around, sweating, getting getting um your heart rate elevated, but we don't often think about the resistance element. So
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I I'm a big fan of um the potential for DEXA as a motivating factor. So, you know, every year after a certain age, you you're invited for uh particular types of screening, whether it be colon cancer screening, uh whether it be breast cancer screening. I reckon there could be a screening whereby you're given the muscle to fat ratios uh and you're told, look, this is how you can improve it and it's almost like giving people a target to achieve through things like strength training exercises so you can readdress that balance because you're right, sarcopenia is a huge issue. Um and I mean, the the data looking at that loss of muscle mass and the propensity towards all those other uh lifestyle related illnesses, whether it be cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia, you know, there's so much that exercise has a role in and and that's all mediated by the immune system and inflammation.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, I think that's that's a really good idea with the DEXA. So instead of people getting on the scales and feeling disappointed because it's not moving in the right direction, it may be that you've got dramatic changes to your body composition going on that are moving in a positive way, but sadly that's not picked up at when you just look at your weight. Um and that would be really interesting to have that from a certain age just as a kind of screening tool.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. Diving a little bit deeper into some of those mechanisms, you you mentioned um mitochondrial damage and I wonder if we could just zoom in a little on mitochondria as it pertains to the immune system and why mitochondrial damage is such an important concept to get people's heads around. And you you you've described this really nicely in your book, so that's why I'm pulling it out.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, I think uh the mitochondria are fascinating. I think um the immune system is sort of uh your immune cells, they have mitochondria as all your nucleated cells do and these are really at the core of all the metabolic processes. So they're little tiny organelles found in our cells and they basically help us turn food into energy, um generating something called ATP, which is like the energy currency of our body. And obviously, when our immune cells are activated and off fighting off germs, they need this um uh extra supply of energy. So the mitochondria and the health of those little organelles is really important to immune cell function. Um and so during a sort of, you know, at the moment, I'm I'm healthy, I don't have any infection, nothing going on. I would expect my mitochondria to just be working at their baseline level. Um but then uh if I got sick, for example, the the mitochondria would have to uh do some sort of metabolic switching to be allowing my immune cells to become activated. So there's these metabolic switches that take them from this quiet, quiescent state, we call it, into a metabolically active immune cell that can go out and fight infections. So we need the mitochondria to be functioning properly so that we can do that effectively if we were to encounter a virus, for example. Um and the other interesting thing about mitochondria is that they um can be damaged by things like oxidative stress. So we encounter oxidative stress in our bodies just from the day to day running of um, you know, of our bodies turning food into energy. But also when we're fighting an infection, for example, um and we have all this inflammation in our body, which is there to fight off those germs, make the environment really uncomfortable for those germs, the immune system uses oxidative stress as a weapon uh to fight off the germs. And because it's uncomfortable for the germs, it's also having a collateral effect on our bodies. Um so there's always this kind of two sides to every immune response. It's helpful, it's beneficial, but there's always the the the opportunity for a bit of collateral damage to our own tissues. And so this oxidative stress that's elevated during inflammation can also damage the mitochondria themselves and make them a bit kind of leaky, a bit kind of um uh dysfunctional. Um and that's okay if we have sufficient antioxidant status in our body. But certain lifestyle factors like smoking, stress, poor sleep, pollution, a poor diet, um aging, for example, can actually cause a decline in our mitochondrial function, um and also the the sort of number of mitochondria that our cells have. And when the mitochondria are damaged, they actually release what we call um damage associated molecular patterns. So like little barcodes um that leak out and these further activate our immune cells because our immune cells have receptors for these damage associated molecular patterns and it tells us that there's tissue damage in the body, we need inflammation and immune cell activation to go and repair that damage, which is fine if you've, you know, uh broken your arm and there's tissue damage, but if it's just because things are just metabolically a little bit falling apart, then you're actually getting yourself into this perpetual cycle and we get this sort of low grade inflammation that's furthering that oxidative stress.
Dr Rupy: That yeah, that that that really nicely sort of uh describes the cascade of of different steps, I guess in um the immune response. So you have your mitochondrial damage that leads to these other molecular patterns and stuff. And just from the lens of um evolution, which is what I always like to think about, are there certain behaviors that would be protective as a result of that massive swath of inflammation? So, you know, you're you're going to be energy drain depleted, you're not really want to go outside, you're going to want to sort of hibernate. Uh are there some sort of benefits associated with that behavior? Because it seems that there's almost like a badge of honor if you can break through that and like continue to go to work, continue to exercise, continue to look after the kids, like all this all that kind of stuff. Should we be listening to our bodies a bit more and being a lot more intuitive?
Dr Jenna: Oh, 100%. And I I was kind of at the the beginning of COVID, I was thinking, hopefully the legacy of COVID is that we get over this presenteeism where we feel like we have to go and show up to work. It's just a cold, I'm fine, you know, and and it turns out that the science tells us that generally when we go to work, even if we have some minor infection, you know, like a cold, we're generally less productive and we're generally spreading that infection to our fellow commuters and um people around us and we're taking longer to get well again. So I'm really hopeful that people will start to listen to their bodies, but also the the workplace culture will be like, okay, you're sick, take one day off at home, get fully restored and then come back to work rather than trying to fight through it. And you know, when we have this inflammation going on in our body, it's serving a purpose. It's trying to fight off those germs. As I said, it's making this um hostile environment for them inside our body. Um and it's also acting on our brain. So some of the the mediators of this inflammatory response produced by our immune cells are acting on our brain to change our behavior, which is why when you have inflammation in the body, you probably feel a bit socially withdrawn, you probably feel a bit uh, you know, depressed and change in appetite, change in mood, change in sleep patterns, uh lethargic, tired, you might have a fever. We call these sickness behaviors. So they're a suite of different behaviors that are induced by our immune system acting on our brain. And that serves a purpose because you don't feel like going out and doing your normal activities. Uh you might just feel like lounging around on the sofa, uh relaxing. So you're helping your body have the energy available to get well again because as I mentioned earlier, you know, immune responses are very energetically costly. So you're freeing up that energy because you're not going out, running around, going to the gym, going to work, and you're also not spreading your germs to other people because nobody really wants to have someone else's germs either. Now, the thing that gets quite interesting when we start to look at chronic inflammatory diseases where there's not an infectious disease component, but people have this low grade inflammation, is what we start to see these symptoms happening. So, um people with uh mood disorders, there seems to be a subset of people for whom that inflammation in the body is causing the low mood and there's been several clinical trials looking at either an anti-inflammatory lifestyle intervention like a diet or using anti-inflammatory drugs can actually improve the mood disorder in those people. And for a long time, people with things like autoimmune diseases, it was considered that they had a low mood because they've been diagnosed with this chronic disease. But actually it turns right out that that mood can be improved by certain anti-inflammatory interventions because it's the inflammation in their body from the autoimmune disease that was acting on their brain. So I think it's really interesting and I'm really hopeful that this will open up many therapeutic um avenues in the future in this field.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I I I totally understand that. Not to go on too much about COVID because I think everyone's uh pretty pretty done with it. But I I did find it interesting how at least with the the initial uh variations of it that it was a virus that allowed people to sort of function normally for the first couple of days whilst they were infectious until they started displaying symptoms and those sickness behaviors and then they stayed at home. So it was pretty efficient at getting out there uh undetected, wasn't it at the start? I mean, that's probably one of the reasons why it just spread so so quickly.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, exactly. I mean, every infectious disease will have its own kind of uh period of uh where it's infecting us before that immune response kicks in. And and obviously when we think about how we've evolved in this world full of germs, you know, the whole reason we have an immune system is because we have germs in our environment where we've been evolving as a species. And so the germs are always trying to evade our immune response and our immune response is always trying to get on top of these different strategies that germs will employ. And obviously it's really handy if a germ can be infecting you and starting to replicate and hijack your body to make little copies of itself before you get those symptoms that make you sit up and think, oh, I'm not well, I'm going to stay home. And yeah, that's what happens is you get this easy spread globally.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I've got to ask you about um sugar because we we just recently did a podcast all about uh the impact of sugar and ways in which to blunt the speed at which sugar goes into your bloodstream. Um and and I was really interested to read about uh a section in your book about how sugar causes inflammation. It's association with, well, the the cause of advanced glycemic end products, insulin resistance and its association with the immune system. I wonder if we could touch on the uh the the impact of excess sugar in in the diet.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, this is a hot topic and it's again one of those messages that's quite simplified when we, you know, look at online media, it's that, you know, sugar is bad, sugar is inflammatory. Uh it's definitely the sort of nutritional demon du jour. Um but I think there is a lot more to it than meets the eye. Um and I think one thing that stood out actually in the last two years, I think it was 2021, there was a study looking at elevated blood sugar as one of the most likely risk factors to explain why an otherwise healthy patient with no other risk factors would end up with a severe form of COVID. So say you're just, you know, you're healthy, you're not of a certain age, no underlying conditions, but you have a poor blood sugar control. Um and we do know that it's not necessarily the sugar that you're eating. So, you know, if I'm sitting with some sugary snack right now, I couldn't say, okay, that's going to weaken my immunity because you have to zoom out and broaden the lens and say, what else have I eaten today across the week, across my general um uh lifestyle. But when we eat sugar or foods that are full of sugar because nobody really sits with a sugar bowl uh eating sugar, but when we eat um sugary foods, it's going to be absorbed and have an impact on the sugar in our blood. And sugar in our blood is um something that our body doesn't want to happen for very long. So we produce insulin to try and remove the sugar from our blood because if it's hanging around there for too long, it's going to be problematic, not just for our immune system, but for lots of other problems um in our body. And we know that um studies, for example, with people with uh poorly controlled diabetes where they have prolonged um elevated blood sugar, we see weakened antimicrobial defenses. So the immune response to microbes, viruses, bacteria. Um and some in some cases this environment can promote viral replication and it can sort of promote the storm of inflammation. And if we think about the immunometabolism that we talked about before, then we know that the metabolic sources of fuel going into the body are are going to affect how that inflammation is proceeding. So I would say to people rather than worrying about, you know, how much sugar you're eating, think about your blood sugar response because I think that everybody is different in how this happens. So we'll get a blood sugar rise after each time we eat more or less. Um and it's primarily down to the carbohydrate content of the food, but also what else we're eating in the context of that um meal. Um and a sort of healthy blood sugar response after eating should sort of normalize uh in a sort of timely way in the hours after that meal or snack. But as many of us might have experienced, you can get on that blood sugar roller coaster, which is, you know, where you might get a sort of sugar spike followed by a slump and it sort of doesn't quite stabilize in the way that we would like. Um and we know that this can be associated with an exaggerated inflammatory response after eating. So it's post eating inflammation. So in the sort of three to four hours after um eating, we we have a mild inflammatory response that occurs anyway and the more sugar that is in that meal, the more exaggerated this seems to be. And during that time, our immune system seems to be less able to deal with germs. Um we know that if we have sugar hanging around in the blood for too long or too frequently, it starts to put these glycans, which are sort of sugar molecules on different proteins in our body and our immune system seems to be particularly susceptible to this. So it will um glyconate things like antibodies and then our antibodies don't function as well. Um and then insulin is the hormone that helps remove sugar from the blood. Um and insulin seems to really mess with the function of immune cells when it's um disregulated. Uh and it can also add to this oxidative stress. Um and then blood sugar issues seem to affect how well we switch on and off genes. So we have, you know, a certain number of genes in our body, but each cell will be switching on and off different genes depending on what it's doing and what it needs. So this uh disregulated blood sugar response can also affect that process, which can perhaps build into more long term um uh issues. So there's sort of multiple ways that the sugar in our diet can affect our immune function. Um and I think, you know, most public health messaging is suggestive that we should reduce foods that have lots of added sugar. So, you know, we have things like the sugar tax, sugar sweetened beverages. Um I don't think that um, you know, you need to get yourself into this sort of food prison where you cannot eat any sugar ever. But we do need to be mindful and certainly as a parent, I realize that the environment is just um for kids is just to like every everything's trying to make your child eat added sugar at every point. Um so we need to also accept that part of the responsibility is in the food environment that which we live, like um for me personally, I try to curate my own micro environment at home and I just don't buy the stuff that I don't want my family to eat. But inevitably when you go outside into the big world, I'm not going to stop them at a birthday party, you know, going wild at the the buffet and that kind of thing. Um so I think yeah, there it's it's being conscious of the quality and the quantity of of those foods that can set us off on that blood sugar roller coaster. So it's going to be the real obvious, you know, foods that are full of added sugar and the sugar sweetened beverages. And then there's other strategies that can help, which is things like the the fiber in your your food. And fiber is probably, you know, the unsung hero of the immune response. I'm sure we can discuss that in more detail later, but it can help uh with that blood sugar response. Um and then having protein with your meals and healthy fats to meals, you know, being uh generally active um throughout your day and the other things that we know will regulate that blood sugar response.
Dr Rupy: I want to ask you about CGMs because I've been using a CGM for the past couple of months, well like a couple of weeks at a time, and I got some really interesting insights from my personal blood sugar response to certain items, items that I would buy in the supermarket that I would read the the back of the packets, like, you know, it's got oats, it's got fiber, it's etc. But still my blood sugar would would rise uh massively. And so that's really made me change sort of the kind of foods that I have in my diet. I I wonder your opinion, perhaps generally on on CGMs and whether you think they're they're potentially useful.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, I think it's interesting. As somebody who loves data and loves a bit of self-experimentation, like I'm really curious. Um I actually have an experiment coming up where I will be wearing one. So I'm kind of interested to see the uh like what you experienced, how foods that I maybe routinely eat, uh how they're affecting my blood sugar. Um I'm not sure outside of curiosity if they have a good if they have a place for really optimizing your health because I feel like there's a few things that are missed. You know, it's only looking at the blood sugar response, it's not also looking at your insulin response. And I I feel like we're looking to get this sort of flat line glucose, but I don't think that's necessarily where we need to be. I think having a rise in blood sugar is fine and normal and I think in a healthy um person, as long as you have the ability to correct that in a timely fashion, I think that's also okay. Um but the blood sugar monitor won't tell you what your insulin's doing. So it won't tell you how much insulin is needed by your body to keep your um blood sugar levels at a healthy number. And so you're missing that kind of half of the equation. Perhaps there's going to be some future devices that are going to give you both sets of information. So what your blood sugar is doing and how much insulin your body's having to produce to to normalize your blood sugar levels. Um I really like the um is it the predict studies with Tim Spector which um came out maybe 2021 now, um where they looked at um huge numbers of people with um continuous glucose monitors and they found that people um respond dramatically differently to the same food. And this was something that I wrote about in the book because I had seen things on social media where people like, don't eat these five foods because of what they do to your blood sugar and it'd be things like porridge or, you know, not not just the obvious things like sugary foods. Um and I was kind of like, well, you know what, we're all really different and they um in the paper they attributed to partially to genetics, but the biggest part seemed to be um the gut microbiome. So that seemed to be what was uh in this study uh in particular, uh giving that huge difference between two people and perhaps the same food. So I think that again, that intuition of how do you feel after eating can be a really important factor. And I do think it's perhaps good practice to do the kind of things like adding protein to meals, some healthy fats to meals, you know, being uh generally active um throughout your day and the other things that we know will regulate that blood sugar response. Um I think it's really interesting though. I would love to to know how I'm reacting to foods that I eat all the time. What were the biggest surprises then for you?
Dr Rupy: Uh so energy balls. I don't really have energy balls regularly because I I don't have much of a sweet tooth in that respect. But I thought I would try it just to see like, you know, what the response is and yeah, it was not good. What about coffee? Did that?
Dr Jenna: Coffee doesn't have anything, no. Because I I tend to um so I start my day uh at like 5 5:00 in the morning. Uh I'll like meditate, I'll do a bit of stretching and then uh I'll have a coffee at about 6:30 in the morning. So I've waited a little time after that natural diurnal cortisol spike to have my coffee. Didn't do anything. Uh but but then again, I don't know what my insulin response is. So, you know, my insulin could have been uh being produced to to maintain that that flat level of glucose. Um which just for the listeners is a very interesting concept to get your head around because you can have a flat level of glucose or your HBA1C can be within normal range and all of a sudden go out of range because you've you've needed increasing amounts of insulin because you become generally more and more resistant to it and the tolerance effect dictates that you need to release more until the point where uh it reaches that critical uh threshold where your insulin is just not enough and then that's when we have to use diabetic drugs and and all the rest of it. Um so yeah, so I I don't have that kind of information, but I think you're right, having a collection of all these different data uh sources, your microbiota data, your genomic data, your glucose response data, perhaps even other wearables as well to really drill down on, okay, what kind of things should you, what what are personal insights for you? Um for for people like me and you, I think this is really cool. But for the general population, I'm still a little bit skeptical as to how much of a difference this is going to make to someone who just, you know, can't muster the motivation to cook from scratch at home a couple of times a week, you know? I I don't think it's going to move the needle for that person, which unfortunately is a lot of us.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, and especially, you know, if you're saying to someone who maybe doesn't have the level of awareness of health or even an interest in their personal health and changing sort of their lifestyle habits, you know, let's wear this continuous glucose monitor and let's see when you have your normal daily food and drink intake and you're having like a can of Coke and something really sweet for for lunch or lacking fiber, um and the the person sees this kind of blood sugar roller coaster and then gets that afternoon slump and you say to them, okay, if this continues, it's maybe going to send you down a path towards uh increased risk for certain conditions, but that that you might not get those symptoms for 10, 20 years. Is that enough that to for them to to change that sort of routine habit? They might really enjoy that for lunch and they don't have the sort of motivation to change. So it's a it's an interesting one. Um and these things are becoming more and more available to the general public. It's interesting what you said about cortisol, um which is the stress hormone that's produced. We produce it naturally to wake us up in the morning and this cortisol awakening response has quite a profound impact on our immune system. It actually helps get rid of um immune cells that are a bit malfunctioning. So if you wake up in the morning and you feel quite like um perky and you're ready to leap out of the of of your bed and start the day, that's a good sign that your cortisol awakening response is is sort of working properly because that surge is getting you going and it does that by pulling glucose into your bloodstream so you've got a source of energy. Um even though you haven't eaten anything, it's it's taking it from the stored glucose in your body. Um and coffee also tends to have this effect on people. It'll increase cortisol, which pulls glucose from the stores in your body into the bloodstream giving you an immediate sense of energy. Um so is it the cortisol awakening response waking you up or is it that first cup of coffee as soon as you open your eyes? But like you uh mentioned, delaying the first cup of coffee can allow you to still enjoy that morning coffee, but help you ascertain how do you really feel when you wake up and that can be a good indicator of what's going on.
Dr Rupy: That's a really good tip. Yeah, and I think it might have been something that you said on a social media post or somewhere I've heard it before. I was like, I definitely need to space out my coffee from the morning routine of waking up and having a coffee. I I don't think I've ever been someone who's craved a coffee first thing in the morning and I've just had that natural sort of I's going to sound really annoying to a lot of people listening to this, but I'm I'm a naturally quite perky person in the morning.
Dr Jenna: I can understand that because I'm I'm definitely like on the extreme end of um morning lark, but I'm married to someone who's a complete night owl, so I I experience both ends of the spectrum. But yeah.
Dr Rupy: One of my buddies actually, who's a helicopter doctor in um in Sydney, he's he's a night owl and his partner who's a nurse is a proper lark, morning lark. So yeah, they I I understand the sort of uh the stresses that can that can create. Actually, speaking of um people who are perhaps less motivated to um make those changes, a lot of people move to supplementation as a sort of um safety belt if you like, just to make sure that they're, you know, functioning well, pop a multivitamin. What what are your thoughts on supplements and uh over supplementing? Because we're like you're saying, we're seeing a lot of supplements in the consumer space that are promising a lot of things and, you know, sometimes I I just wonder, yeah, what what the impact of over supplementation might might be for people.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, I think that's a really, really good point. Um I think the supplement space is really exciting. I'm always sort of uh looking to see what's coming out, doing the due diligence on, you know, different formulations, different ingredients. I'm quite excited by the use of different botanicals in supplement form. Um but one of the things when I was writing the book, it came from a place of like, you know, I'm asked all the time, what do I do when I get sick? Like, oh no, I've come down with this lurgy, what do I take? What supplements can I take? It's the go to that that people think about. Uh is there something that can shorten the duration of the illness, the symptoms? And my first thought is always like, what's your baseline? You know, what's your baseline? What were you doing up until this point you felt felt sick? And so the second the middle section of the book is about building your baseline. So it's looking at the different lifestyle levers that we can tangibly um grab onto and and just turning them up a notch or two. So your diet, um you know, your blood sugar response, the exercise, sleep, all of those things because once you have your baseline, yes, then you can think about where what aspects of my baseline do I need to supplement, um and then when I get sick, I know I've got a good baseline, but are there little things I can add in once I become sick that might get me better sooner? Um and so I I like to think of it as as from that perspective. So before you go spending your money on things, build your baseline and then also have your little kind of medicine cabinet of supplements for when you do get sick because there's maybe things that you don't need to take all the time necessarily. So it's supplements space is really interesting. Um I think we don't really have a good way of knowing who's deficient in what micronutrients. So the the vitamins and minerals. Um with the immune system, the ones that spring to mind is also always things like vitamin C, um vitamin D, zinc. But I would argue that you need to be um sufficient in all key micronutrients. Uh so all of the essential vitamins and minerals because they all play a role in how your immune system functions. So we're looking for that sufficiency across the whole suite of the essential um vitamins and minerals. And then if you maybe have um an underlying health condition or you're going through a particularly period of stress or poor diet, you know, you might be a new parent who's not getting enough sleep, not eating well, you might be pregnant, you might have a chronic inflammatory disease, your nutrient needs might be different and then you want to supplement your baseline uh with that. For me, I think perhaps, you know, once you you've worked on those baselines, the next thing is maybe sort of around gut health. I think supplementation around gut health might be um something that's quite useful for a lot of people, not necessarily um probiotics, although I think they do have their place, but more sort of moving upstream to the prebiotics. So um most of us are not eating enough fiber. Sometimes it can be quite hard with the current, you know, lifestyle and and food uh environment that we have to get enough fiber. And there's some really interesting studies, actually they're quite old now, probably um 15 years old where eight weeks of supplementing people with um certain prebiotics, so galactooligosaccharide or fructooligosaccharide, so often you'll see it written as GOS or FOS, um improved markers of immune cell function. So the ability of particular um immune cells to kill uh viruses or respond to infection, um also lowered levels of inflammation in the body, uh and better responses to vaccines have all been demonstrated from as little as eight weeks of just taking a a fiber supplement. So I think depending on how people are eating and or if, you know, suddenly adding more fiber to your diet is something that you're struggling with, then there might be space for targeted intervention there. And I think it's going to help the immune system in two ways. So we know that it's feeding the microbes in the gut. They are producing their metabolites which are absorbed into the bloodstream and traveling around the body and having direct impact on immune cell function. But it's also going to keep that gut barrier integrity uh in place. So we have this long digestive tube that, you know, is uh our our digestive tract. Um and we're throwing all sorts of things in there every day and it's got to cope with that, but it's also incredibly thin and delicate so that it can absorb the nutrients from our diet. And it's got this huge uh amount of um microbial material in there, all of these sort of so-called good uh microbes that make up the gut microbiota. And if that barrier is compromised, those good microbes can sort of move into the body through the gut barrier and there they become a problem because they look like any other germ to our immune system and they will cause inflammation. So the gut can actually be quite um a significant source of this unwanted inflammation in the body if we're not taking care of it. And these gut microbes are also sort of training and educating our immune cells, um of which there are, you know, a huge amount of them in the gut.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. And with regards to multivitamins, I just want to get your answer on this. Do you think they are a safety belt? Let let's say like I don't know, like like you pointed out, it's very hard to know what your baseline is in terms of your micronutrients and your your your minerals, your vitamins, etc. Do you think supplementing with a multivitamin is just a nice sort of foundation or a safety belt that people could utilize or does it really have to be personalized to that to that individual?
Dr Jenna: Oh, I think in an ideal world, it would be personalized. My worry is that people take a multivitamin and they think it negates the need for a good diet. So it's oh it's okay, I've taken my multivitamin today, so if I go out and don't um try and uh meet my nutritional needs through the meals that I consume, then it's all okay. Um and I think it depends on how balanced the multivitamin is as well because um we don't want to have too many of certain micronutrients. In fact, there's studies showing that that can be detrimental to immune cell function. So some is good, more is not always better and it's kind of the poison's in the dose really. Um so I think it's it may be if you look at a population level, yes, it might be useful because I suspect that many of us are burning the candle at both ends a little bit, pushing uh, you know, ourselves to sort of the limits in terms of giving our bodies what it needs. So it could just be that um that little safety net. Plus when we get sick, we deplete a lot of these micronutrients anyway and so part of the reason that I think some people take longer to recover from illness is because these stores are are so depleted and we really need to sort of build ourselves back up.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. And this is great because I'm just going to ask you a lot of questions and get your opinions on things. So, uh so what do you make of um uh the the influx of dehydrated uh whole food products like so athletic greens for example, as an example is, you know, really, really popular. I think they're worth about 150 million dollars. Um they have great distribution across the world and they they have a very good story. There are many other sort of versions of this product that are are available in the market. Um I for one actually started taking a dehydrated green product like 10 years ago when I was living in Brighton. I just found one. I was trying to be healthy. I had no idea what I was doing and I started and I took that for many years. Not that I could, you know, discern a a a discernible difference or anything like that. But they are out there and they they are popular. I I wonder what what your opinion on those are.
Dr Jenna: Again, I I would lean towards sort of food first and use those as a a kind of uh supplement to the gaps. Um maybe you're a shift worker or you're busy or, you know, certain phases of your life where you're just not able to to go with the food first approach. I think again, it depends how they're formulated. I don't know if we have any studies looking at these sort of um products in terms of their um fiber and their effect on the microbiome. That would be kind of something I would be curious to know about. Um so yeah, if you take that instead of a meal, it's maybe giving you the sort of complete range of nutrients, but what would it be better to have those nutrients through a meal because of the interaction with your gut microbiome? I'm not sure of the answer to that. Um personally, I'm like, I don't I don't want to drink my meal. I've I've never had like a protein shake or anything because I just can't. I just I don't know. So it could be down to to personal preference as well. I don't think you need to have it to be healthy if you've got the the diet dialed in, but I could see how it could be really useful. If you imagine if you're working in the hospital and you're on a long shift and, you know, you want to consume something that's not from the vending machine. Yeah.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I wonder about this. I mean, I don't think we're ever going to see a study that's done properly because the market is already there, so there's no real need for a really robust study. Um and that would look like, you know, you have some participants where you give them a food focused approach where you give them the general amounts that you would find in a concentrated supplement. You give other people a a regular diet, let's say quote unquote, with this supplementation that's equivalent to the amount of food that you have in the other in the in the actual real food uh participants. And then you, you know, you give someone a multivitamin in another sort of um arm of the of the trial and then just see if if there's that graded effect. And maybe even like a supplement to the the healthy diet one as well and just see if if that has any added benefit because I'm like you, I'm I'm more of a food focus approach, uh food first approach, but I wonder if there are any attributable benefits to having that as an extra. Um because I mean, there are some studies looking at um broccoli sprout extract and some other, you know, cruciferous vegetables as well that are taken in supplemental form that are are promising.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, I think these are the things that I'm quite excited about is not like perhaps a meal replacement, but the supplements that are concentrating a specific botanical um and looking at the effects uh in in um a population. And I think there's some really exciting data you can find looking at the mechanisms in in cell culture studies and in mice, but I think yeah, we want to know who who's going to benefit most from these kind of uh supplements to to a good diet and lifestyle.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. Let let's talk about some of those botanicals that you're excited about because you mentioned some uh in in your book, uh like oregano, oregano, listen to me, I've been listening to way too many American podcasts. Oregano oil, um obviously the the big characters like garlic and turmeric, for example, uh honey. Uh I'd love to know a bit more about that and and also sort of your your process behind how you look at studies. I'm always fascinated in how people write books like yourself and go through that whole research process because I have my way of doing things and and doing that my own books and stuff and uh after doing my masters in in nutritional medicine, you know, I was I was taught a different way of analyzing papers and stuff. So I'd love to know a bit more about that as well.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, I've gosh, the writing process. I feel like I've buried that because it's like this particular book I think was challenging because of lockdowns and homeschooling and um all the sort of then I was doing all the editing when life sort of went back to normal and back, you know, working in person again and um uh yeah, I I feel like I I look at a few different things. So I'm looking at um looking for studies that are looking at the baseline of your immune system. So what does a healthy baseline look like? And then studies that are interventions in specific health conditions. And then the last section of the book I have a section on infection, on allergy, on autoimmune disease, um and so what's in the literature around uh interventions that we can do uh in those particular situations. Um generally trying to look at human studies. You kind of often have to go with the evidence that's available and then caveat, you know, I sometimes make little boxes in the book that that you know, this interesting study in a mouse showed us this. It doesn't necessarily mean that you are a mouse and should take this because it might not have the same effect. Um and then there's when you look at uh something like a meta analysis, which is grouping together lots of other lots of similar studies and it's building that body of evidence. So you can say with a little bit more conviction that okay, this is something that people should try. And quite often I would again caveat in the book that we're all really, really different because even things like probiotic interventions, when we look at specific strains, it's like, yes, the most of the people in this study reacted in this way, but that's not to say that you as an individual will also uh react in that way. So, um I also kind of encourage a little bit of self-experimentation within a safe kind of framework. So, um things like making a food diary or a symptom diary, uh and I know it's a real painstaking process to note these things down every day, but especially if you're trying out supplements and things, what are you looking for? What benefit or or change are you um curious about? Um and then taking something for a set amount of time and not changing too many other variables, not taking 10 different new supplements at once, um and sort of going through that process really methodically can actually be of great value. I speak to people a lot who have changed a million things at once and they don't know what's working and what's not. And you then you have to go and unravel all that and start from scratch and do the hard work again.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, you've got this really lovely term uh at the start of the book, I think it was called the immunobiography. which I I think it's a lovely way of of giving people a framework such that they can do that safe experimentation and they can do it in a methodical way.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, because you know, when you come with a question, I'll be like, well, okay, what age are you? Where how has your lifestyle been? What happened when you're a child? You know, where were you born? How were you born? How many courses of antibiotics have you had? Um what's in your family history? Uh and then it's really, really illuminating once we start to to go through the biography of your health and write it down. And I've I've listed some questions and different prompts for people and it's kind of like a form of narrative medicine, telling your own story. And um I've found many people respond really well with that because often when you have unpleasant symptoms or you have a diagnosis and you're coping with that, it can be quite helpful in accepting what's got you there when you start to look back and sort of scrutinize different parts of your life, um and realize that our immune system is a product of everything that's gone before. As I said, it's not static, it's changing throughout our lifetime. It's sort of built by our exposures, both to infections, but also to other events in our life from from stress and our environment and our relationships, you know, social connection, uh the list goes on really.
Dr Rupy: So yeah, I guess going back to the different things that I'm excited about. Um I I think things like garlic is a really like it's a great thing to cook with. Everyone either loves it or hates it.
Dr Jenna: I'm so glad you said that. I love garlic. I know it's uh maybe for some people they're not a fan, but it's got um a really growing body of evidence showing that some of the chemical compounds inside, so Allison is one that's been um proven to have antimicrobial activity. Um and it shows real promise in treating and preventing upper respiratory viruses. Um so eating garlic can actually activate certain genes related to immune function. Um and I think that uh raw garlic uh when you crush it and leave it and let some of those chemical reactions occur that will naturally um form these um compounds, it is the most uh effective way to consume it, but who wants to be doing that every day? And it's estimated that, you know, you need three times as much cooked garlic. So just make, you know, throw as much into your food as you can. Um
Dr Rupy: If I if I was I'm just thinking about a recipe now. So if I was to blend garlic in like a little food processor and then cover it with a good quality oil and leave it to steep for 24 hours before I use it almost like a dressing, would that fix some of those uh phytochemicals that are found in garlic or do they naturally degrade if they're exposed to air and then you lose some of those benefits?
Dr Jenna: That's a good question. I I know that the the crushing, the chopping um is causing that reaction to start happening straight away. I don't know when it stops and when it would start to degrade. Um but yeah, maybe like a pesto or something. I'm sure you would still have some of those beneficial compounds around. But that's a good thing to do.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, for sure. If you made a fresh pesto. Yeah, I'll look into that.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, like a salsa or hummus, yes, salad dressings. Um I think turmeric is another one where there's been a lot of scientific interest. Um and it's full of these curcuminoids, um which have been shown to have this antiviral and antibacterial uh activity. It's also really delicious and it gives that vibrancy to food. Um pairing it with the black pepper uh is helping with the absorption. Um or taking as a a supplement. And the same goes with garlic. There are supplements available if people really don't like um uh the flavor of garlic. I don't know who those people are, but uh they do exist. Um and again, curcumin 500 milligrams a day has been shown to reduce pain and inflammation. And again, I think the formulation is really important in terms of the bioavailability and the absorption. Um and then we have what we call quorum sensor inhibitors. So I think that sounds really scientific. But quorum sensing is a way that germs sort of talk to each other using chemical messengers. Um and it helps them to try and establish a critical threshold. So they need to obviously invade a host, so a human, uh and then they start to multiply to a critical threshold in order for that infection to really take um uh take hold and be able to spread to other hosts, so nearby um uh humans. And a lot of these warming spices, so ginger, cardamom, eucalyptus, clove, they've been shown to interfere with this process. So they can be really useful. We often think of them as winter uh spices. So in winter we have a higher number of viruses that circulate because they they tend to like the the cooler conditions of winter. So having these warming spices habitually in your um in your daily and weekly meals can help intervene with that process, um stopping this quorum sensing process. So getting there before the the germs are really um able to take a foothold. Um another thing I'm a big fan of is lactoferrin. So that's something we produce naturally. Uh it's in things like breast milk, it's in saliva, lots of body secretions. Um and there's also another one lactoperoxidase, which uh is another um product that we produce naturally. But uh there are now supplements available of this. And taken lactoferrin upon onset of cold symptoms has been shown to reduce um the symptoms and shorten the duration. And also there's some evidence that it might actually prevent the incidence of cold. So often it's taken as a like a lozenge, so it coats um the back of the throat and and the mouth. Um
Dr Rupy: Where is lactoperoxidase uh where does it come from?
Dr Jenna: Um it's again, it's just a an enzyme that our body produces naturally. So it's
Dr Rupy: Oh, just naturally. Okay.
Dr Jenna: So and then it can be people have now started to make supplements of that.
Dr Rupy: Oh, interesting.
Dr Jenna: So
Dr Rupy: And what's the dose? Like what uh how much should I be uh looking to get on that?
Dr Jenna: I don't know. I think with lactoferrin, it was around, there's studies between 600 milligrams and 2 grams per day. Um I personally it's one that I keep in my little medicine box and I have supplements that also have vitamin C and zinc combined together. Um and so as soon as any of us get any kind of lurgy, um they're great for kids because obviously as a lozenge, they can um can suck and and zinc and and vitamin C are two micronutrients that our immune cells use way more of when they're actively fighting an infection. So I don't necessarily think people need to supplement with them all the time if they have a a good balanced diet. Um but it's definitely something that I personally would take if I got sick because there's some evidence it might shorten the duration of um of your infection. Um and then the beta glucans from mushrooms. So I'm a big fan of these micronutrients as I call them. So mushrooms, I think have been long studied for sort of immune enhancing um properties. Uh and I think beta glucans are a great one to supplement with during periods where you might be more stressed or have a higher infection risk or at the first sign of sort of a cold. Um and they do a lot of different things to sort of enhance immune cell function and also just adding mushrooms to your diet. Again, I think mushrooms is something that not everyone is a a big fan of.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I I beta glucans, I think you might find those in oats as well. I can't I can't remember.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, they're a different type. So there's sort of two different formulations. Most of the research is on the mushroom beta glucans um in terms of immune function, anticancer properties, antimicrobial properties. And then the beta glucans in oats um are similar but different and seem to be better for things like cardiovascular health, heart disease. So
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. Are there particular types of mushrooms that you warm towards for their for perhaps for their benefits or novel antioxidants or anything?
Dr Jenna: Yeah, I think there's a lot to be said for just the the bog standard button mushroom. Um there's definitely some
Dr Rupy: I thought you were going to say something really exotic there like my or or something.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, I think some of the functional mushrooms, the more sort of um exotic ones, uh have some very unique compounds inside that, you know, there's research showing that they're um very beneficial. But I think we shouldn't um underestimate the the bog standard button mushroom.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you think uh because again, I'm I'm it's basically you're talking to you about all the supplements that I see in my local health food store. So I'm I'm seeing a lot of uh of dehydrated mushrooms put into capsules of various uh specificities. So lion's mane, chaga, maitake, a bunch of others. What what what are your opinions on that? Are you bullish about the idea of those having specific phytochemicals that could be beneficial? I I see immune supporting quite a bit as a claim for those. Um I'm just wondering what what your opinion on those are.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, I you know what, I'm actually quite a fan of the old uh mushroom supplement. Um I do find they're generally quite um expensive, which I think could be uh sort of um something that would make people perhaps decide whether they would buy it or not. Um and I do think there is a growing body of research, but I'm not sure how much is in humans on the various properties of these different mushrooms. I know specific ones seem to be earmarked for their effect on the immune system, but I would suspect that probably the the effects are more broad in the body and there's a lot of overlap between them. So I don't think you necessarily need to just have a one type uh if you're looking for sort of immune supporting mushroom supplement.
Dr Rupy: If if price was no sort of uh barrier to to you or anyone listening to this, let's say, would you take a selection of different uh mushroom capsules uh as like again, almost like a safety belt. Like, you know, I'm not going to get mushrooms in my diet every day. You know, it can be hard to source sometimes. Sometimes I just don't feel like putting mushrooms in my diet. Would I like, would it be beneficial of having like a couple of capsules of a bit of chaga, a bit of lion's mane, maybe, you know, my or whatever. Would would is that something that you think could potentially have benefit?
Dr Jenna: I mean, I would I would hedge my bets to say yes. It's anyone who uh follows me on Instagram might have seen me having my eggs in the morning where I sprinkle mushroom powder on the top of them.
Dr Rupy: Oh, do you? Oh, nice. Okay, okay.
Dr Jenna: So I have like just a blend that comes as a powder that you can uh yeah, sprinkle on top and it's awesome. Or put into whatever food and you wouldn't really taste it. And I again, I think it comes down to convenience. So, you know, as a mom who also works, sometimes it's really uh there's not enough time to perhaps prepare the food I want. And so I have found myself leaning into these kind of powders that you can add um to food. So mushroom powders, I also like blueberry powder and have it on yogurt because I think blueberries are a real powerhouse. Um and it's quite tasty as well. So if I don't have the fresh fruit in, that could also be useful.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I uh I've started experimenting with a few powdered ingredients actually, like uh lingonberry. Um we did some research for the app where we found lingonberries were were beneficial for skin health. Um probably owing to some of the unique antioxidants, but also its general effect on oxidative stress. Um so anyway, I started experimenting with that and it's a very tart sort of tasting berry, which I really like. But then I also have like frozen berries quite a bit, like black currants, I always like throw that on top of whatever I'm eating or have it with a dark chocolate. I'm pretty bullish on the idea of uh frozen whole foods at source. I think there's a really good convenience.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, they're a real go to. Like if I get home and I've got my two hungry kids, um then I I have my frozen onions, frozen peppers, frozen like different frozen vegetables and I can quickly make like pasta sauce or something. Um so it's kind of striking that balance between, you know, what's feasible, um and you know, what's available. Uh so they can be really useful. Yeah.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, absolutely. Um on that note, uh oregano oil, sorry, I I I butchered the pronunciation of oregano earlier and I I know people probably want to want to know a bit more about oregano.
Dr Jenna: Yes. So oregano oil is kind of um uh often considered nature's sort of antibiotic. Um and there's some evidence that it can work um just as effectively. It's also anti-inflammatory. Um and it seems to be less disruptive to the sort of good uh bacteria that make up the microbiota on and in our bodies. Um it contains um carvacrol, I think I pronounce this properly, carvacrol and thymol, which are really powerful antibacterial compounds. Um and again, you can get this uh as a supplement um or uh in sort of a drop form. I think it's perhaps something you should take under the guidance of a practitioner. Um and then I guess the other antimicrobial is honey, which has been shown to have quite um uh powerful antimicrobial uh actions, at least in test tubes. Um and it's now deemed a better alternative um for coughs and sore throats to taking like the the usual stuff you can buy from the pharmacy. Um and then manuka honey is the particular uh type of honey that's really rich in certain antimicrobial, which has a lot of evidence coming for like wound healing and that kind of thing.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I was going to ask about this. So we use uh a honey uh topical um for wound healing for little wounds on on like the face in particular. So we we I mean, you we have to like keep them under lock and key because they're kind of expensive and you can't just get like, you know, some of the juniors just pick it up and and using it. But um uh I was going to ask, do do you invest in manuka honey? Are you a are you a manuka honey buyer? Because whenever I go to the supermarket, it's literally like under lock and key in the same way like a bottle of tequila is. It's expensive. It's expensive stuff.
Dr Jenna: When I grew up, my mom was very much one about like uh nature heals. She had all these kind of ideas and so we always had manuka honey and whenever anyone was unwell or anything, it was like straight in manuka honey. I have to say, I haven't bought it for a number of years. Um so I have used it in the past with my kids um when they were a couple of years younger. Um it's probably a good one if you can afford it to have in your little kind of medicine cabinet, but yeah, it is prohibitively expensive and I think that the um to get the really good quality ones that are going to have that efficacy, then yeah, you have to pay a mighty price for it normally.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I haven't been able to justify the cost yet, but uh I might try. This is going to be an expensive podcast episode for me. I'm going to try all these different different hacks and stuff. Um I was going to ask you about N-acetylcysteine as well because that's something that again, we we use in in medicine um for paracetamol overdoses and stuff, but uh I was really interested to see its potential use in in um immunity building.
Dr Jenna: Yes, yeah. So I yeah, I'm quite um a fan of N-acetylcysteine, so NAC as it's often shortened to. Um it's uh feeding into this uh pathway of helping us produce glutathione, which is an antioxidant that we produce normally uh by ourselves. So some some antioxidants we get from food, glutathione we produce, but we need to obviously provide the raw materials for our body to do that. Um NAC is also been shown to interfere with viral replication and one of the interesting things it does is that it's it's important for the mucus um that our body produces. So lining the mucosa, so the throat, the the lungs, the airways and the um digestive tract. And it helps those mucus secretions um move more sort of fluidly and then our body can sort of clear them. And anyone who's ever had a respiratory infection will know that you, you know, mucus starts to be uh really problematic and annoying and and you're coughing up uh mucus. So that's a way of your body getting rid of whatever it is that's infecting you. And 600 milligrams of NAC twice a day has been um shown to be beneficial in sort of easing some of those respiratory symptoms that we get when we have this uh virus and um mucosal symptoms. So again, it's another one that's useful to have in your um in your little medicine box. Yeah.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. This medicine box is huge. This is great. I mean, I I wonder if it's useful in post viral coughs and um post viral mucus because that's a very common issue. Um as a GP, I saw loads of people coming in like two, three weeks after having the initial insult and you know, the fever's uh uh uh have dissipated, they feel much better, but they have this residual sort of mucus. And we usually describe it as a post viral cough where you've got rid of the virus, but you've still got the remnants of what the issue was, which is excess inflammation and and mucus. Um and usually people revert to things like codeine and uh syrups that that don't really have too much evidence behind. So I yeah, I I wonder if that that could be beneficial considering the mechanism.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, I think so. Um I would be curious to know uh what's been um looked at in terms of that kind of long tail of an infection, particularly thinking about things like long COVID. Um purely not only because of its um effects on the mucus barrier, but because it's required for the production of glutathione, this antioxidant. And quite often, we become very um depleted in in antioxidants when we're fighting an infection because we have this rise in oxidative stress from um the the acts of our immune system producing inflammation. And so perhaps some of its benefits might also come from supporting the antioxidant um recovery after infection, which again has been something that's speculated to be underlying things like long COVID, this sort of real depletion of uh antioxidant status.
Dr Rupy: Talking of speculation, uh I've noticed uh a lot of IV drips with glutathione added to it uh as well as some other supplements that are glutathione based. Do do you think there's any role for those at all or are we just lacking the evidence base for that?
Dr Jenna: I'm not familiar with uh strong evidence in favor of that. Um but I'd be happy to be corrected because perhaps it's just something I haven't come across. Um again, I think I would be a bit cautious before doing something like that. Um and also if you get your body to the stage where you need an IV drip, then you know, you you need to work on those foundations as well.
Dr Rupy: I think this is more of an American thing where they're giving IV drips as a sort of like extra sort of enhanced wellness based therapy sort of thing. I'm not too sure how much evidence base there is, but yeah, I think
Dr Jenna: Yeah, I think there's probably studies looking at glutathione in specific indications. Um so specific disease situations, but for the the general healthy person who's interested in the wellness aspect, they're probably quite healthy anyway. Is there a benefit from taking more on top? I'm not sure and I would I think I would be like a little bit cautious before sort of parting money on that uh type of intervention.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I think uh certainly growing up in the UK where we have this concept of, is it going to change management and is it going to give that stepwise sort of benefit, you know, for the amount of effort and the potential risk of any intervention? I think yeah, well I I I'm naturally a bit more cautious when it comes to this kind of stuff. Talking of cautiousness, uh I want to talk about body burden and the the definition of what we mean by by body burden and the impact of environmental pollutants. You you mentioned that before in our sort of framework of how we think about the immune system. And I think as unfashionable as it is to talk about the impact of uh chemicals in our environment that we don't have much control over, I think it's really pertinent for people to understand this idea, understand this idea of like reducing our risk wherever we can, wherever it's feasible possible without giving off health anxiety. Because the more you know, the more you're like, oh my god, I live in London and there's like airplanes going across me and I'm by a a road and I'm breathing in all these chemicals. So it can be quite stressful, but I think we definitely need to have these conversations.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, definitely. Um and we yeah, we need to get uh the messages out in a way that people can not be completely paralyzed by fear, but also perhaps help empower people in sort of different life choices they make and also with how they cast their votes in terms because a lot of this I think needs to be coming from legislation and that kind of thing. But body burden is this term used to describe the sort of collective strain on our bodies from all the different exposures we have. And I feel like in biomedical science in the we often talk about how the genes load the gun and then the environment pulls the trigger. But we don't often step back and think, what is the environment? What does that mean? I mean, it means like everything. Um and I did a whole chapter about this aspect of our environment on our immune system because I wanted to really uh guide people on how they could consider how their environment's making them feel. So, yeah, body burden uh is kind of our exposure to different things that may cause harm. It doesn't necessarily mean that it will cause harm. We see the scary headlines, you know, around um BPA is a good example. So bisphenol A is something that's found in certain plastics. Um there's certain uh there's growing evidence from um mice uh looking at the mechanism of BPA in um uh modulating um uh the hormone responses in the body. Um and then there's some studies looking in humans that suggest this could be problematic. Um now, just because you're exposed to BPA or you've used a BPA uh water bottle at some point in your life, doesn't necessarily mean that this is going to add to your body burden, but then when we start to look in the context of all these other many environmental exposures, it's possible that there's sort of this mounting um you know, pile of uh different things that we come in contact with that might be driving some of the issues that we see with our immune system. And it seems that our immune cells are particularly vulnerable to some of these environmental um toxins. I guess toxins not perhaps the best word. I guess the the man-made manufactured things we officially call toxicants, but toxins is probably a word that people are more um uh familiar with. And most of the studies looking at what's a healthy exposure for a human, um will be looking at some of these in isolation, but not necessarily looking at your unique suite of exposures, um over time, and so there's also new chemicals being put into our food system and our environment all the time that we haven't got any data on. Um and some of the serious effects might take decades to realize. Pretty much none of us can test ourselves effectively to get a an idea of our complete body burden. So just how many of these potentially toxic chemicals have we been exposed to and are inside our body in a way that could be causing harm. And yes, we have ways to detox from many of these and some of this has been worked out for certain chemicals. So I think BPA, for example, leaves the body quite quickly. Um and um I think now it's more looking at that balance of detoxing through um urine, stool, liver, um sweat, for example, versus exposures. And are we in a stage where the balance is sort of overwhelming in terms of exposures and we can't quite detox quickly enough. And one interesting example that I came out a couple of weeks ago was the detection of microplastics in humans for the first time. So we've found microplastics in urine and stool, but this was the first time that they developed the technology to be able to detect these in the blood of humans. And it seemed that immune cells were like really vulnerable to these and were um sucking up these microplastics and it was altering um their function. So it's a very preliminary study and it doesn't tell us exactly what the implications of this are, but I suspect we're sort of scratching the surface of um what our current environment might be doing in terms of a lot of the rising diseases that we see, so metabolic disease, inflammatory disease, autoimmune disease and allergies. Um and so I think that we shouldn't be scared or overwhelmed, but we can make choices with what we buy and with how we vote and with how we support our body's ability to remove some of these toxic products through sort of diet and lifestyle um uh choices that we make.
Dr Rupy: I'll be honest, that that does scare me. I'm I'm I'm trying not to be scared about it, but but yeah, I know it's a preliminary study and I know we need to sort of uh take a pragmatic approach to that, but that that is kind of worrying. And I guess like considering the way you described that, so, you know, you have your exposure, your environmental uh exposures collectively that have increased and our ability to detoxify, which we have some incredible mechanisms innately, um are being overwhelmed. What pragmatic choices do you make uh on a day to day basis to reduce said exposure and increase the excretion of uh those products that I think we have to take uh guilty until proven otherwise approach in my view anyway because, you know, we we don't want to wait decades before we have that research to make the changes that we should have done prior.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, I think I I would yeah, just uh encourage people to be cautious and also most of this is linked to planetary health. So um reducing the single use plastic that you use, that's also benefiting our environment and you know, the environment is therefore benefiting our health. So um the nice thing about it is that if you are a motivated um and environmentally conscious, then the two are kind of linked together. Um a lot of exposure, according to the World Health Organization, um is attributable to things found in our food. Um so this can be things that are found naturally in food or generated through cooking mechanisms. So um acrylamides, which are when we cook foods with um high sugar or starch content, um and you know, you get that like browning of the food and this seems to be linked to um uh increasing the risk of cancer. Um then there's the sort of uh aromatic hydrocarbons, so the when you cook meat at very high temperatures, um the nitrosamines in um processed meat. Um and then the plastics used in food packaging. Um then things like pesticides, herbicides, fungicides that are also in the sort of food chain. Um and mercury, which is often in seafood. And I don't think we need to avoid certain things, but certainly we can reduce our exposure to single use plastic. We can make sure that we're eating plentiful plant foods when we are eating some of these um foods that have been highlighted, so meats cooked in a certain way, um or mercury from seafood. Um and looking for uh produce that we're buying that um is limiting the number of herbicides and and pesticides used in the production. Um then again, being inside in our house is actually a huge hazard in terms of the the environmental exposure to these things. And this like blew me away when I realized that we're becoming like an indoor species. Like we spend 80% of our time indoors these days and actually when I step back and look at my own lifestyle, like a lot of my work is inside. Um we live in the UK, so the weather for six months of the year, you don't want to be out outside necessarily. But the um air pollution, we normally think about, oh, there's a busy road nearby, there's a lot of air pollution, but actually the air inside our homes can be um worse than the air outside our homes. So, um thinking about indoor air pollution is really important because that's the air that you're breathing most of the time. Um and it's going to be the accumulation of things like having your windows closed, the byproducts of cooking without good ventilation, um certain consumer products. So a lot of the fragrances that are added to things, so maybe in laundry and personal care, um cigarette smoke or certain building materials as well. Um so those are things that we can also look at by just things like opening our windows more, getting outside as much as possible, choosing um products inside our home that minimize some of these um uh things that are are known to be problematic. So some of the fragrances, the volatile organic compounds or what's known as persistent organic pollutants. So these are kind of forever chemicals that hang around for a really long time. And then the thalates, which uh is in everything from food packaging, fragrances, different personal care products. And and often these accumulate in dust. Um so it's something that when I was researching the book, I was uh quite shocked to find that dust is not just kind of this unsightly thing that, you know, accumulates in our home when we haven't got around to cleaning for a while. Um but it's actually a source of a lot of these um environmental um toxic chemicals. Uh and so things like wet dusting your home is really, really important to do now and again. Um yeah, and just getting your um your windows open, even when it's cold. Um interesting things like upcycling and repurposing furniture because some of the older furniture hasn't got um these sort of gases that come off when you when it's covered in the flame retardants and things. So using uh older furniture and upcycling can actually reduce this indoor um toxic environment.
Dr Rupy: I got I yeah, I I was going to ask you about this. So I want to do a quick fire round with you actually because I have a a bunch of questions that I've just thought about this right now. So, quick fire round. How many house plants do you have in your house?
Dr Jenna: Oh, I wouldn't even know where to start. A lot.
Dr Rupy: A lot. Okay, a lot. Is there a particular plant that you're like a big
Dr Jenna: 40 maybe. I like I'm quite a fan of a Calathea. Um I'm quite into ferns at the moment. I tend to go with what I find aesthetically pleasing rather than perhaps the best ones for the job.
Dr Rupy: Okay, okay. But house plants sound like they're good. Okay. Do you have plastic or glass tupperware in your house?
Dr Jenna: Glass. I switched quite a while ago. Yeah, some of them have plastic lids that make an airtight lid, but obviously the food is not in contact. And save your empty jars from, you know, whenever you've bought things in jars.
Dr Rupy: Peanut butter and stuff.
Dr Jenna: Yeah, and then if I'm steaming veggies, I steam uh extra than what I need and then I just put them in the glass jar and immediately into the fridge and they stay really like um fresh and and don't go too soft and mushy and you can add them to a salad the next day or roast them up with some olive oil or garlic, that kind of thing.
Dr Rupy: Awesome. This is a quick fire round. Sorry. Do you use do you use regular perfume or do you use uh specific ones that are thalate and uh fragrance free?
Dr Jenna: Specific ones that are, yeah, I do due diligence there.
Dr Rupy: What house cleaning products do you use? Are you talking are we talking Ecover or method or we talking regular?
Dr Jenna: Uh a combination of Ecover method and then a few other things that like I get from my mom like using vinegar and lemon juice and stuff.
Dr Rupy: Okay, okay, great. Uh what about um I'm just thinking of some other things now. Do you do you use a microwave?
Dr Jenna: I have a microwave, but uh it just came with the kitchen. I don't use it that often actually.
Dr Rupy: It just came with the kitchen. That's brilliant. Do you sauna?
Dr Jenna: I built one in my house because I love it so much.
Dr Rupy: I knew it. I knew it. Okay. Uh this is really fun. This is I'm just trying to get I it's almost like I'm uh predicting the Yeah. I'm a psychic. Um what else? Do you use barefoot shoes?
Dr Jenna: Yeah, I have two pairs, very well worn.
Dr Rupy: By the way, this this does apply to myself as well. Like I I do I do a lot of these things myself. But I think it's it's interesting because you know, you start somewhere, it might be your tupperware, you might be like, um I'm going to remove the plastic ones, I'm going to start using the glass ones and stuff within reason. Um oh, I was going to ask actually, do you use any non-stick pans?
Dr Jenna: I do. We have a combination of cast iron, which I'm I I feel like I I'm not I don't have the skill to cook with or maybe I need to season it better. But I do have ones that they're one of the more eco brands, but I'm not sure quite what that means in terms of um exposure to these sort of environmental chemicals that could be problematic. But sometimes I it's a balance. It's not about being perfect. You know what I mean? Like I it's too exhausting to yeah.
Dr Rupy: It really is exhausting. So I've got a non-stick pan. It's a big paella pan that I absolutely love and I'm not going to get rid of that one. But I did change a bunch of my uh pans uh recently and you're right about the cast iron pans. It does take a little while of getting used to it. So it's not as easy as just slapping anything in. You need to use slightly more oil. You need to make sure you season the pan after every use and that helps with the sticky. Yeah, it's a little bit extra work unfortunately. But there are some uh companies, um I'm not affiliated with any of these companies that we've mentioned today, but like Le Creuset and Staub, they've got ceramic enameled um pans that are less sticky. So you you can use those. And the good thing about these is that, yes, they cost twice, sometimes three times the price, but they have a lifetime guarantee. And I always hear anecdotes of people like, oh, they broke the the handle or they broke one of the knobs and they sent it back and they just gave it a new one for free. Um so they're really good in in terms of like looking after their customers as well.
Dr Jenna: And I think the non-stick comes off over time, so then you end up repurchasing a pan and then that's going in the waste and contributing to, you know, the the environmental waste. So, yeah, sometimes investing in one or two really good things can pay off in the long run in more ways than one.
Dr Rupy: Absolutely, absolutely. I I I wanted to end this uh conversation actually by talking about stress and I think it's pretty pertinent actually because we might have stressed a few people out with all the things that they have to purchase and invest in like this this little cabinet of all these different supplements and stuff. But we we you talk about stress in the book, um as sometimes something that we need to reframe as good stress. Uh and I think you know, there's a lot of things that we could learn from stoicism in terms of the the approach and the perspective that we take when it comes to stress because I think stress inherently in society is seen as a bad thing that you need to mitigate against, you need to sort of protect yourself against. But actually, I think leaning into the stress and reframing how stress is for you and seeing it as something that drives you and motivates you, I think that's a a skill that needs to be to be learned. So yeah.
Dr Jenna: I think we need to start talking about stress in a different way because you know what it's like, it's almost like infectious. If everyone's like, oh, I'm stressed and it's in a negative light, you start thinking, oh, I must be stressed too. And and we know that that that that feeling is having an effect on how your immune system functions because we know about this close connection between the brain and our thoughts, um and and the neurochemicals that are orchestrating those thoughts, they're able to affect what our immune cells are doing. Our immune cells have receptors for things like endorphins and um uh dopamine and serotonin. And so there's this two way communication between the brain and the immune system. And I think I I've always sort of admitted that I'm a bit of a natural stress head. I get stressed quite easily. So when writing about stress, I was like, this is so illuminating to realize that sometimes I'm stressed because it's motivating me to get somewhere. You know, if you've got an exam, you have a lot of stress in your body, but it's it's helping you get to that give you the motivation to to do the revision or even with COVID, the stress around um this new virus in the beginning of the pandemic, it's motivating people to maybe be a bit more vigilant about the basic tenets of public health that we know stop infections from spreading that may have got sort of diluted along the years. And so it's it's powerful, um and it's very real. It's just hard to to think of it in a physical sense because we often associate stress with how we're feeling in our in our minds. But no matter what is stressing you out, whether it's work or life or or any other aspect um that's causing stress on your body, we have this one single stress response, which is orchestrated by um epinephrine, norepinephrine and um cortisol. And actually a short term stress is very um um good for your immune response because it's getting your body ready to fight off infection, to heal a potential wound. You know, imagine if you're about to be hit by a bus, you need that stress response to get you to safety. And if you were accidentally hit by the bus, you need your immune system there to start healing and repairing you. But it's when that cycle goes on and on that it starts to become negative, it becomes distress. So the opposite would be you stress, a beneficial stress. Um and as somebody who gets stressed quite easily, I was really curious in what I could do to to figure this out. And I I break this down in the book because we see a lot of different stress tools and again, often it's really overly simplified. And I'd be like, I can't meditate when I'm like in the supermarket and I just get this phone call about something really stressful. There's nothing I can do in that moment um around mindfulness and meditation and all these things that have evidence based stress reducing practices. But what I can do is I can probably access my breath and I can probably access my eyes and take myself into a better environment. So going out into green space is very calming, um broadening the gaze, um because when we're stressed, we tend to hyperfocus. Um and also accessing our breathing. So you can take conscious control over your breathing. Um and you can practice something like box breathing or extending the exhale. Uh and it's all giving signals to your brain that you're safe, it's calm, it's okay. Um and that can help bring down that sort of stress response. So I see these as sort of the real time tools that we can use in real time when we're stressed. And then there's the kind of future proofing tools that take a bit of skill and practice. So the meditation, you know, you might need to get some help on how to meditate or join a class or um look at some resources and practice it. It's not going to maybe help you with stress right here right now, but it might um future proof you from other uh stresses that are still to come because it's sort of an inevitable part of life. And then there's the sort of um uh stress where you physically or or deliberately put yourself into a stressful situation. So getting in an ice bath is going to have that same stress chemistry going around your body, but it's going to help you sort of raise your threshold for stress. It's sort of going to help it's a hormetic stress as we call it. So it's it's deliberately stressing your body to help make you more resilient to that stress chemistry in the future. And we know that the stress chemistry helps your immune system in the short term, as I mentioned, but over time it will suppress your immune function. And I think one of the biggest things um that's overlooked when people think about their immune system is the effect of stress on their body. We've become so sort of habituated to to how stressed we are that um it's almost normal to just feel stressed 24/7 about work, about deadlines, about never really being off anymore because everything's quite 24/7. I think blurring the lines when everyone moved to remote working. Um and I think leaning into that is really, really important. I remember when I was writing the book and I was just thinking, writer's block is just like writing. It's just hard. And once you kind of accept that and sort of lean into that, you're like, that's why it feels so hard because it just is hard. But it's something I want to do, so I can push through that. Um and the same comes for my thoughts about parenting. Like it's just hard sometimes. But that is just parenting, you know, and if you lean into it and start thinking about why you're doing it and and looking for the positives, it can be a good way to take the edge off. Um and I think if you do struggle with stress, you have to work twice as hard maybe to empty that stress cup. So I kind of think of us all as having a different size of stress cup. So if mine is quite small, it gets full really quickly. I've got to do little things all the time to relieve my stress, whereas somebody who's got a greater capacity for stress, maybe they don't need to to work as hard on on that kind of uh easing off of of the stress in your life.
Dr Rupy: I love that analogy. That's brilliant. Like finding out what size stress cup you are so you know how often you need to empty said cup. And it might be like once a day, it might be once a week, you know, for me, meditation every day is like a a habit that I need to maintain. But it's interesting the way you talk about it in terms of how some people use meditation in the moment, whereas actually it should be used as a preventative tool in the same way we might use a statin and we might use exercise to prevent, you know, cardiovascular issues in the future. And in the moment, those those breathing tools, those eyes tools, you know, labeling the issue and being aware and being intuitive of the the stressful moment, uh and then doing some little actions and having that little stress toolbox so you can mitigate the effects of it. I think those are those are things I'm going to start practicing now. Widening my gaze is definitely something I need to start doing more of because I'm just sat in front of a computer the whole time these days. So yeah.
Dr Jenna: And I think, you know, like we shouldn't underestimate the trickle down effect of being stressed. So yes, we know that distress or unhelpful stress can suppress our immune system, but it can also affect our sleep. Um cortisol is also pulling um sugar into our bloodstream and that can mess with our blood sugar regulation, which can mess with um the food that we're more likely to reach for. And then if we're sleep deprived, there's now evidence that we end up reaching for the wrong foods and and over consuming calories. And then that affects your immune system. So it's kind of if you manage to keep on top of that stress and and have those tools in your toolbox, then the the sort of broader implications are really, really huge. Um and I often think people are desperately trying to eat well, you have to go upstream and and look at things like stress before you can get yourself in a head space where you've got that capacity to make those food choices that are going to support your health. And the more I think about it, I think, well, so much about our mental health is important for our physical health. So if you have a good mental state, you recover better from things, from operations, from infections. But so much of our physical health like eating well and exercising is supporting our mental health and these two um you just can't uh overestimate how these two things are linked, I think.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. Jenna, this is so lovely chatting to you for this amount of time. We've we've done a few pods before, we've talked about inflammation and the immune system itself and it's always a pleasure to have you on. And uh you've done an amazing book and I can't wait to see what happens uh what happens next with you. And your your newsletter is great as well. I'm a subscriber. It's it's a great resource.
Dr Jenna: Thank you. Yeah, I can't believe I've managed to consistently keep it up now for a couple of years. I I really enjoy it actually. It's nice to have a little sandbox for ideas uh and it seems to be.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, you're a superwoman. You're a proper superwoman.
Dr Jenna: Thank you so much for having me on. It's been a pleasure.
