**EP391: Gut Microbiome, Blood Pressure, and Mental Wellbeing**
**Dr. Auric Bishop:** Welcome, my name's Dr. Auric Bishop. I'm a cardiologist, an author, and a keynote speaker. I'm CEO of the Healthy Heart Network. I'm all about trying to help people live as well as possible for as long as possible. Heart disease is huge in Australia. Every 20 minutes, someone suffers a heart attack. Most of these could probably have been avoided if only we knew what to do. This podcast is all about helping you understand blood pressure, weight, cholesterol, for better health. If you enjoy this podcast, I would be honoured for a five-star review. You can share it with your family and friends. It may well save someone you love.
G'day and welcome. It's, well, time for another podcast. Thank you for joining me. I'm going to be talking about a couple of things today. I normally say welcome to my podcast and videocast station, but today I'm just going to jump straight in. I'm going to talk about gut health because it's super important. I'm going to talk about blood pressure, and I'm going to touch on mental well-being. All these things are super important not just for our cardiovascular health but really for our general health and quality of life. So without any further ado, let's start with the gut.
It's often referred to as your second brain. And if you're wondering why that's the case, it's because there's such a lot of nerves within the gut. Many nerves, like nerve endings. In fact, glial cells, the sort of cells that are in the brain, neurons, all that. So it really does have an enormous amount of brain-like tissue there.
Now, the really interesting thing about the gut is, if you think about it, if we were to straighten out our gut and straighten out our bodies, then the gut is really exposed to the outside world. Our mouths are open, and at the tail end, that's an opening. We literally have a tube that runs down the middle of us, like a donut, except we're more complicated in shape than a donut. That means that we've got an internal cavity, which is, in essence, an external cavity. Get your head around that.
Now, in that external cavity, there's a whole bunch of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and these are the things that are called the gut microbiome. These organisms live with us, in us, but literally on us, and help not just with digestion, and we're learning, have an intimate role in things like immune function, inflammation, blood sugar control, and even neurotransmitters, which are the messengers that affect the brain, including things like serotonin, which is a happiness neurotransmitter.
When we damage the gut microbiome, we can then expose the underlying gut tissue, and if that gets damaged, we can get leaky gut. You may have heard of that, and that's a problem because a leaky gut means that unfiltered molecules from inside the gut can get into the bloodstream, and this drives things like inflammation and insulin resistance and can even alter brain function, believe it or not. There's an abundance of research happening in this space, and it's starting to show and confirm that the microbiome may well have significant influence when it comes to things like blood pressure, weight regulation, and mood, and even psychiatric disturbance.
Well, what can you do to look after your gut microbiome? Things like fiber are really important. It protects the gut microbiome, and therefore that protects the inner lining of your gut. Certain fermented foods, cabbages, kimchi, cultured foods like yogurt, eating the rainbow, and avoiding things that could be detrimental like salt and antibiotics can go a long way to keeping that microbiome healthy.
What I'd like you to think about is the next time you eat: Am I eating for me, or am I eating for my gut microbiome? Because if you eat for your gut microbiome and you look after it, then in the longer term, it will look after you as well.
Let's talk about blood pressure. Blood pressure is one of my soapboxes. It is one of the most powerful predictors of heart attack, stroke, kidney disease, and dementia. Yet it is often just not treated very well. It's the main driver because it's literally the wear and tear on our arteries and on our heart muscle and on our kidneys. It just damages stuff over time. It is the wear and tear.
And it's often called the silent killer because you don't feel much, and your blood pressure could be high for many years. If you're pumping at 100,000 beats a day, 700,000 beats a week, and we're talking two and a half to three billion beats in a lifetime, if you can reduce your blood pressure by just 10%, can you imagine the impact that has on the work that your heart has to do and on the wear and tear your arteries have to suffer? Well, it means that small improvements can make a big difference. So get it measured, know where you are.
But also think about the lifestyle things that can help. Things like physical activity, better sleep, stress management makes sense, cutting out salt, using salt substitutes with more potassium, and looking after your gut health. Blood pressure is super duper important; it does tie in with gut health, but it ties in with a heap of other things as well, so do prioritize it. Even though you don't feel it, get it checked and be right across it.
The last thing I wanted to talk about today was mental health. Mental well-being is a really big thing. We do see from the Harvard longevity study that interpersonal relationships are one of the most significant associations to a long and healthy life. We know that depression increases the risk of heart attack and stroke. We're aware that anxiety and chronic stress raise cortisol and therefore blood pressure levels. There's no question, and we've all experienced this, but we've demonstrated this scientifically that poor sleep worsens both inflammation and insulin resistance, and poor diet can impact mood, memory, and energy.
So, at the same time, improving physical health, whether through movement, sleep, and nutrition, almost always benefits mental health. So as you look after the body, you will start to look after the mind, and to a degree, vice versa. I've had patients improve their blood pressure and improve their mood just by some of those small changes. Improving that sleep quality in particular and having good sleep hygiene is really important. Good habits pay dividends in the long term.
Remember that things like loneliness, social isolation, and mental stress all do drive inflammation, blood pressure, and increased cardiovascular events.
So what are your takeaways today? Please look after your gut, look after your blood pressure, and look after your mental well-being. They all intertwine. If you can start to get all your ducks flying in a row, they will all fly in a beautiful pattern, and you'll have a wonderful future. If you can't get them organized, then unfortunately with time, you'll suffer the consequences.
We do touch on a fair bit of this and how it interplays with cholesterol and cardiovascular risk in our book, "Cholesterol Explained," due to be released mid-2025, so keep an eye out for that if you are interested. Until next time, if you've got any queries or questions, drop us a note at info@drwarwickbishop.online and let us know if there's anything you'd like me to cover. Other than that, I'm going to wish you the best. I do genuinely hope you live as well as possible for as long as possible. Take care and bye for now.
Did you know that coronary artery disease kills one in four people? So most of us are likely to carry some risk or know someone who does. If you're interested in finding out more about how to evaluate that risk, check out www.virtualheartcheck.com.au. It will give you information about risk and what else can be done to be even more precise.
