0:00 Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat. Someone come to come.
0:49 Good afternoon. Good afternoon. >> Have a seat. lies healthan well in the space of next 90 minutes I'll be discussing with this highprofile scientists first of all may I ask both Dr. Williamson and Dr. G, you have both been working with Amway in different capacities for many years now. Can you share with us a little bit about why you work with Amway? Shall I start
1:36 with Dr. Williamson first? >> Thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to be here. I did biochemistry originally and I'm at Queens University in Belfast in the UK. And so I've been working with Amway in my capacity as a professor at those universities. Um, previously I was in Australia. And what I really enjoy working uh with Amway for is because the level of science that they try to reach is really really good. There's a lot of good um scientists at the various centers that I've been to and I think that that is something that's really important uh for me. I'm also on the scientific advisory board and there's a number of uh senior
2:23 scientists on that board and I get to meet them every year and it's almost like being back with old friends uh because I think we really established a good rapport um working together. The other thing I have to say is that it's great to see such a wonderful audience and I really wish that my students at the university were as enthusiastic as all of you are. >> [screaming] >> Well, sound nice to be surrounded by scientists. Is that entertaining? [laughter] Anyway, you share your experience real soon. However, uh for Dr. G, can you share your experience being surrounded by well-known scientists in Amway?
3:08 >> Yes. uh it's been already 10 11 years that I've been working together with the MA and back then I was working in the university together with the German professor uh uh both of us were uh professors and we were consulting in terms of the microbiology for the MA scientist back then but I started to realize that uh MA has a very unique feature in terms of the valuing the science in their product that most of the companies that we've been consulting many different companies in terms of microbiology but what I found was uh many different companies they try to use the science as a marketing tool not really investing money and time in the
3:55 science to come up with a unique and and brilliant product into the market but I I I found out the AMA values the science very much and back then in terms of the microb biology and the microbiome. uh it required a lot of time and endurance because it was a very much premature era but already 10 years ago MA decided to work on it together and and it was a great experience for the last 10 years that we've been developing very unique and and forefront science in terms of the microbiome and at the same time as Gary said uh getting all together with a various scientists in the different field that's amazing
4:42 experience that we talk about many different types of science that I I would never would have been talking with my colleagues but that's a a great experience and at the same time it was amazing looking at the people lined up and running into the room to get the front seat like we were talking maybe our student might run in to get the back seat not the front seat but but having this enthusiastic people who at the same time value this science uh uh and and and it's amazing that our science is actually helping not entertaining other doctors or professors but actually our science is helping people to live better life that's
5:27 amazing experience >> wow wonderful I like that >> science can sometime excite people >> yes >> we'll talk about that later but but there's one thing during the conversation I found that there might be some technical terms in which I need further elaboration. For example, you mentioned many time microbiology I learned since when we were young but microbiome what is that exactly later on we discuss that to make sure that our translator over there >> they can do their job properly. >> Okay. >> Anyway from the two gentlemen let's turn to the brightest lady on the stage here Dr. Gigi. Dr. Can you share with us your current role in Amway right now and how you use your research and register dietician backgrounds in your current work? >> I have been had a I've had a pleasure of
6:14 being at Amway for eight years and it's been such a wonderful journey working with a field of scientists that are likeminded but that I get to learn from every single day. It's one of the purest joys of my career so far at Amway. One of my primary roles is to use science and existing evidence to be able to substantiate claims. So when you see a package, you have a claim on the front or you have a claim on your website. There is a team of scientists like me who use the existing science or Amway science studies to be able to substantiate and prove those facts to be true. In addition to that primary role, I also collaborate with marketing
7:00 regulatory teams like the Thailand market have um to collaborate and do projects on but also put on these amazing events together. And one of my mo mo most exciting part that I don't get to do too much of but still exciting is to collaborate with scientists like Dr. Fiser, Dr. Williamson, and Dr. G on on their expertise. I get to learn, work with their team and also continue to develop new evidence so that Amway can advance in their storytelling but also advance in their science and how we approach um nutrition um in the future. >> Wonderful. [screaming] Well, now after introduction, let's go
7:45 into the core message for today. Normally we mentioned breast approach is important for that but before that can you elaborate a bit more lifespan on the one hand and health swan what are difference between the two >> so lifespan is really talking about how long we live. Whether you live to 90, 89, 60, that's just an age. But what we really are looking for is to have a life
8:32 that is high quality where your day-to-day activities is not limited by pain or discomfort or just unhealthiness. And so what we really approach then is health span where your quality of life is high. We can do what we wish so that we are fulfilled in our lives daytoday in order to do so. It really relies on healthy lifestyle behaviors nutrition exercise sleep. We can talk more about that in in as we get into the conversation. But these are the daily behaviors that we have that really helps drive health span. Now at Amway we do have four key drivers. We have cellular health. We have phytonutrients, microbiome and exoome. Let me go a
9:19 little deeper. Cellular health. When we think cellular health, think about your cells. Your body has trillions of cells. These cells make up your organs. They make up your muscles. They make up your tissues. When your cells are not healthy, you are not healthy. So what our role here is is to take care of these cells at the molecular level. So that at the higher level of what we feel like daytoday is something that we enjoy. We are having a good time in our work, we enjoy exercise, we're not feeling pain, right? So having day-to-day stress is actually quite normal, right? it whether it's Thailand traffic whether it's work whether it's
10:04 exercise small amount of stress is quite normal what is not normal is the inability to support these cells and you elect them to stress longer and over time so our body has existing abilities to restore and and support these cells what we can do from nutrition is to support these cells every single day with healthy nutrition like phytonutrients or plant compounds pounds, right? High-fiber foods. Um, and so those are important to recognize. Now, I talk about phytonutrients. Phytonutrients are these amazing plant compounds that you find in plants, whether there are from carrots, from flowers, from spices. You see these phytonutrients all over. They provide a
10:51 variety of benefits that we have. And we're still discovering a lot. But at Amway, phytonutrients are what we are very good at. And so when we talk about phytonutrients, we want to focus on diverse amount of phytonutrients. Whether you eat a variety of vegetables and fruits throughout your diet or change it up seasonally so that you're eating the freshest foods or supplement them through some of the products that you have in in your portfolio. Those are just some of the ways where you include phytonutrients in your daily life to support these cells that we just talked about. Now, we also mentioned about microbiome. We're learning a lot about microbiome. We know a lot because we have experts on our team to be able to inform what we really need to focus on.
11:38 But microbiome is not just a group of microbes in your gut that do amazing things. They also have an impact on your health span, on your organ systems like your brain, your skin, your emotional health. So, we're really learning that the microbiome is not just here, it's everywhere and it's very much connected. And therefore, when your microbiome is not at a healthy state, your health is at risk. Now, of course, we also have exposome. When we think exposomes, you want to think about the things that are exposed to you in on and around. So that might include the water that we drink, the air that we breathe, the food that we have, the products that you put on
12:24 your skin, and even the products that you use to clean your home. Those are all things that you can be exposed to. Some are better than others. And so therefore, we need to be mindful of what kind of things we're exposing our bodies to. How might we support it? Some things are easy to escape. If it's the sun, you might want to put sunscreen on. You might want to put an extra layer of clothing on. But I'm sure you would all agree that maybe some things like air pollution is hard to to escape. So, how might we include some nutrition um lifestyle practices that might actually benefit us and help correct some of that damage that we've instilled on our day-to-day life? >> Well, thank you very much. That's a multi-layer explanation.
13:10 That's why the world needs scientists. Normal people can do like this. By the way, let's turn to another questions. Once she mentioned about fruits and vegetable when I was young like many millions of Thai children we were forced to eat vegetable and fruits and we hate it. My mom hated me but finally it was my wife who was successfully [laughter] convinced me to eat that. By the way in the past for decades we have known that fruits and vegetable are beneficial. What has modern science taught us about phytonutrients that go beyond those traditional message of eat more vegetable? Dr. Williamson, can you explain that a little bit more? >> I just have to say I love fruit and vegetables >> without being forced. >> Without being forced. >> Oh, wonderful. Wonderful. Uh, so phytonutrients, we've heard um the name
13:58 mentioned a lot. Uh, phytonutrients, but I think I just have to spend a few seconds explaining some of the terms. So, phyitochemicals are chemicals from plants which are found, they're naturally occurring, they're found in every single plant. Phytonutrients is a subsection of the phytochemicals which have an effect on health which is why they're called phytoer which is plant nutrient which is an effect on the on the body. So I think it's important to remember that and then within phytonutrients we have all sorts of other classes like we have polyphenols we have glucosinolates we have carotenoids we have a number of different classes within phytonutrients. So it's it's quite a a complicated um
14:44 system which I think is why phytonutrients works quite well. So I think that in the past maybe few decades we've learned so much more about these compounds which are present in plants. We've learned about what they uh where they are where they're found which foods they're found which supplements they're found. And I think that um when uh Neutralite started uh many many many years ago, they were one of the first companies to actually consider that the uh phytonutrients might be might be good and that was really way ahead of uh ahead of its time. Um so I think more recently we've learned a lot about phytonutrients about which ones we need, how much we need and what are their
15:30 effects on the body. So I think the the the message now is is in some ways much more convincing but is also much more complicated because of the the weight of scientific evidence is is really great now but that also means that there's a lot of scientific evidence which is difficult to to to explain. Well next to that I'm sure that at Mway you don't just learn what decades ago taught you but rather you find new discovery. What are some of the most exciting discoveries regarding the phytonutrients and healthy aging Dr. Williamson? >> So I think that healthy aging is something that is is some ways quite difficult to define but one of the ways in which we do that is we have various
16:16 different targets in the body. So each of our cells has different um molecules in which respond and it's it's in fact it's how we live and some of those are very very important in aging. So they control things like our our energy levels, our uh the amount that our blood vessels dilate and therefore blood pressure, those sorts of things. So I think a lot of the things that we've um discovered about the most recently is how the phytonutrients specifically interact with those health-based processes and they can help very much uh in terms of affecting uh blood pressure in terms of affecting aging and in terms of affecting health span and I give hours long lectures on these um
17:03 processes. So there are a lot of targets and there's a lot of phytonutrients, but there is a lot of evidence now for the health benefits of these particular compounds. >> Well, thank you. I wish I go back when I was secondary school and start learning more, pay attention more in biology, but anyway, you enable me to understand that. Now, by the way, can you tell us more about postrenial period? Why is that so important? >> Okay, so the post pan post is difficult to say. uh postprandial period is the time after a meal when your body is still digesting and responding to that meal. And this is one of the most important areas at the moment in terms of phytonutrient action because every
17:50 day we we every day we eat and if we eat a poor diet, we have a lot of saturated fat, a lot of sugar, that puts a stress on the body. So that is one way in which we can improve uh our everyday health over a long period of time because phytonutrients taken at the same time as that highfat and high sugar can actually improve the body's response and stop us getting so much uh damage from that from that highfat high sugar meal. I have to say one highfat high sugar meal probably doesn't do too much but it's if we have that every day then gradually it builds up. So the phyto the phytonutrients provide that everyday protection when
18:36 they're consumed together with that meal. >> By the way can can I ask you one one thing which is an extra questions that mean each and individual reacts to the way we eat fruits and vegetable. Is that correct? uh there's inter individual differences in [clears throat] all of these responses. So some people someone who's very healthy actually responds to a highfat high sugar meal in a better way than someone who is shall we say less healthy. And it's the same thing with the phytonutrients. Every person responds slightly differently to those phytonutrients. So some people might get more benefit, some people might get a bit less benefit. But it's not so simple as that because there's different phytonutrients, different processes and
19:22 as people age their their responses also uh change. So you can't really generalize but certainly as you as you age and as you as you eat you get different different responses but generally the response is is a protective and beneficial one for phytonutrients. >> It some people might not have so much benefit but there's not really a danger if you like consuming. Okay. By the way, one of your research focuses is polyphenols. What makes these compounds particularly interesting in the context of cardiovascular health, metabolic health and healthy aging? So polyphenols are a group of the phytonutrients and for me the thing I study is so it's of course it's the most uh interesting and
20:07 uh they interact at several different stages both after a meal in that postprandial period but also on various different biomarkers that we measure in the blood or we measure in people and they have a particularly strong effect. some of them have a very strong effect a beneficial effect on some of those uh markers of metabolic health or or healthy aging. So that's the reason why I'm really interested in them and we have our understanding of polyphenols has increased so much in the last two decades that um there's so much more but there's still so much more to learn. >> Yeah. And now I would like to talk to Dr. G. But before that the most frequently mentioned terms here is
20:55 microbiome. Yeah. So so I mean next question is about the microbiome but I would like you also to describe further or elaborate a little bit more about what is microbiome precisely. My question is you often describe the microbiome as a transporter between what we eat and what our body ultimately receives. So but first of all what what is microbiome to to ensure the people here have got a common understanding about it? >> Yeah it's it's like I feel like a uh first class of the advanced microbiology. the we we define the terminology of the microbiome, microbiology, lactic acid bacteria, probiotics prebiotics postbiotics. There there are so many different definitions but uh microbiology it
21:42 comprise all kind of bacteria on earth on human on skin in gut. So it's a microbes microbiology yet. So uh these bacteria they don't live by themselves they live together. They have a society like a human. So they have a different job and and and they make certain product out of it. So this society whole consortia of bacteria living together and not only the bacteria and the names of the bacteria but the uh physical chemical structures that they make uh the chemical interactions in between the society of bacteria that we call this uh as a microbiome and in human uh that we have a largest
22:31 microbiome society is in our gut And in our gut we have a trillions of microbes and and uh that is a amazing number that it is even more than the number single person microbiome the number of bacteria is even larger than the whole trees on earth. So it's it's like a understanding this complexity of the bacteria is quite difficult but as you ask uh they have a very special function uh on human health but that's a very modern science uh like when I was in the middle school and the high school I learned when we eat the food uh uh the lizosyme in our saliva
23:19 they they digest the carbohydrate and our Liver makes four different types of enzymes and they digest the food that we eat and we absorb the energy in the small intestine and colon observes the water. That's what we learned but that's not perfectly true anymore. >> So after human genome project the scientist realized we got shocked that humans don't have a very limited amount of functional genes to digest what we consume. Like a easiest example would be the whole kind of a plant materials. They are composed of a very uh minim uh the the standard structure called the cellulose. Yet human don't have a cellulace to digest the cellulose and
24:07 all these kind of understandings are uh after like early 2000 that uh there are limitations that humans can do whatever we eat. So nowadays what we start to understand is uh human digests certain amount of things good enough amount of things to maintain our body yet many of those phytonutrients and the fiber and all those plant materials they come down to the lower part of our intestine undigested and all these bacteria they start to digest it and our microbiome has almost 100 times larger gene compared to our cell human gene. So all those things
24:53 that they start to make uh they are dissolved in the water come down to the colon. Colon is not actually observing the water itself but they're absorbing all those metabolites generated by our microbiome and they are doing a lot of uh uh things for our human health. That's why the scientists nowadays they start to call our microbiome as a internoner drug factory. So, so whatever we eat these bacteria they convert them into the active compound for the human health uh and then they support our health. So kind of one of the easiest example that we can have is like a
25:38 jinseng. In many of the Asian society, we already know the jinseng works for certain people but does not work for certain people. But nowadays we recently have a lot of publications that in the ginseng it's a simple example yet the ginseng in the ginseng the active compound called the ginsenocide is a very large polysaccharide structure. Actually they are not easy to observe in that way and uh if this large structure go into our bloodstream they're going to ruin our kidney they are going to affect many other things in our body but yet people with a certain bacteria they can
26:23 break down this ginenocide into smaller molecule called the compound K and then these people with the right bacteria this compound K goes into their blood system and the ginsing works the but the people without the right bacteria the ginsing just go out to the poop to the toilet so the jinseng doesn't work for the people so from this kind of manner that we start to understand as Gary said everyone has a different responsiveness upon diff different phytonutrients and microbiome is not everything yet we start to decipher some of the secrets that in the modern Healthcare has one of the biggest needs is why do our product
27:09 work for certain people in a perfect way while it does not work for certain people and maybe some of the secrets behind it is the personal microbiome that everyone in the world has a different microbiome and that microbial difference affects on the responsiveness of our consumption. That's why that they consider to be the transporter of what we eat into our blood system. >> Wow. That's mean people can react differently to what we eat as well. My question is like can two individuals eat exactly the same healthy diet and still have very different health outcomes. >> Yes. Yes. uh uh uh that uh one of my
27:55 friend he published in the sale like few years quite a many years ago he did a very large cohort clinical study almost like 800 people tracking their dietary consumption and even uh morning the same apple it can cause very uh various different effect in the blood glucose level in the different people and the major outcome out of there was not their human gene affecting the difference of the blood glucose level. Yet that uh the major uh uh thing was the microbiome difference that caused different amount of the blood glucose level going up and down and after that there uh uh around
28:42 that time there were a lot of monogoric twins studies. So twins they have a uh pretty much same gene together yet they have a totally different health outcomes out of uh consuming different food. So this kind of study backs up nowadays and maybe one very uh h brilliant uh uh study that they have done monogic twins one is obese and one is lean >> which means the this obesity factor is not really coming from their gene because both of them have the same genes. So scientists took their ferrar sample and transplanted it to the mouse and obese faker transplanted mouse
29:27 became obese >> while lean transplanted microb transplanted mice stayed lean under same diet which give us a little bit of understanding nowadays maybe people say I gain weight out of drinking water and maybe for a joke maybe it's true because of their microbiome Some people have a very very high energy efficiency collection out of the different microbiome compared to other people. So it it works differently on different people. Yeah. So it's mean that microbiome vary from one individual to another individual. That's mean there might be some diversity. Can you elaborate us a little bit more about microbiome diversity which is I mean if
30:13 I understand correctly is a hallmark of health. why this diversity is so important and what happens when diversity is lost. >> Okay, so it's getting deeper and deeper. It's the second chapter of the advanced microbiology class going in. So uh uh let let me let me uh give you the simple example first. So as I said uh scientists start to call our microbiome as our internal drug factory. So we have our health factory in our body. So so like a like a uh people here uh let's uh think about it. Every one of you are the CEO of a huge company and and you you
30:59 have a trillions of your employees working in your gut and you provide the raw materials and these employees are producing a lot of drug like molecules to cure your body over the night and h how do we define the good company? Good company needs first large amount of employees. So let's just directly compare the small number employee company and the large number employee company. Obviously we would expect large employee companies will produce more product out of it and as as much as we provide the raw materials they will start to produce a lot of good beneficial product out of it. But not only that good companies have a variety
31:47 of the specialties of the employees like a very large companies they have a lawyers inside accountant and engineers and PhD doctors and even like a so whole variety of different employees that we call diversity. So diversity can be very complex. So it's a different uh uh kind of uh uh specialty of bacteria. How much difference special specialty bacteria that you have means every bacteria have a different gene sets overall we call it pen genome. So some people here have way much larger functional genes to live with while some people have a smaller
32:35 amount of gene to live with which means every human has a 99.9% same gene. Uh in a human gene doesn't have so much difference while according to the different microbiome everyone have a different gene sets to function uh uh in their life. So, so in this way the diversity can be two different manners uh different specialties or the evenness like a some company might have only one lawyer and 2,000 engineers that doesn't match. So how even those functional uh h employees are there. So the diversity maybe means how healthy how good performing health factory that
33:23 each individual has. Maybe one of the global consensus to understand the good factory is the high diverse employees in your gut. >> Well I like your analogy easy to understand. Thank you. You compare that to a to to big conglomerations with people performing different duties. That's so wonderful. That's okay. You enable all us all of us to understand the importance of that diversity in our cups. Now another technical term short chain fatty acid or SCFAs. This scfas have become one of the most discussed topics in microbiome sign. What are these things? I mean short chain fatty acids and why are they considered so important for overall
34:09 health and healthy aging? >> Okay. So uh uh let me continue with the example. So the short-term fatty acid is the major product out of your health factory. >> So if your health factory is performing nicely obviously you will have a high amount of short chain fatty acid. >> But the thing is that uh this short- chain fatty acid the why short- chain fatty acid is important that's going to take a whole day to talk about it. Yeah, it's a but but uh uh the one thing is that human we cannot produce short-term fatty acid ourself and but while we are very much dependent on our microbiome to
34:56 be provided with the short-term fatty acid maybe I will have a more chance to talk about why the short-term fatty acid is important so uh uh but the problem is uh that we have our own factor factory in our gut but actually this factory is competing uh in terms of the raw material in terms of the myself and my bacteria in our gut. So uh things that we consume as I said uh the the dietary component it comprises with the two different sectors which I can use it and sometimes I cannot use it in the upper part of my intestine and I have to let it go to the down uh uh lower part of our intestine and that's going to be the
35:43 uh uh raw material for our employees. So like if there's a huge uh company and all the sea levels and then chief executive executive members they take all the benefit out of it and they don't pay the employees the employees are not going to work. So, so it's it's a that we uh how to design that we uh benefit myself at the same time providing good enough raw materials for our uh valuable employees to produce the important beneficial metabolites such as short-term fatty acid that is very important. So yeah, that that's how our body works. But the real problem is that in the beginning as you asked to Gary
36:28 and talking about the reduced the amount of uh fiber consumption, vegetables and fruits and those are all affecting the balance between me and my bacteria. How do they uh use the energy? So okay, yeah, I think that the key point is that how can can we manage our own factory in our gut? Yes, >> we discuss that a bit later on. But now another question for you. How do SCFAS influence immune health, metabolism, and inflammatory response? Dr. G. >> Yes. Uh I I think I have talked long enough. So I I will focus one thing about the short-term fatty acid in terms of the immune health. But I think Gary here is
37:15 and the GG are more uh uh specialist in terms of the immune responses on the on our body. But one thing about this short-term fatty acid is uh we have a very very long gut like a five times of my own height. So sometimes it can be six to eight mters long and and they are forwarded very much. So if we just open them up the size of our gut is like a size of a single or double tennis court. So but but you know this uh uh our body our cell they regenerate they have to regenerate. So like maybe the bone is the one of the longest regeneration is like a 10 years after 10 years every one
38:02 of you will have the new bones and maybe our skin is bit faster it's like a 21 to 28 days maybe outer part of our brain they don't regenerate because otherwise we lose all the memories we keep in our brain so they don't regenerate but very interestingly our gut they regenerate almost every three days >> because they have huge amount of stress that they work like a very strong filters and they're keeping our all the toxins and allergens and dirty materials and then they're literally poop inside but they have to extract out what is valuable for our [clears throat] body and our gut is having a lot of stress out of it and but very interesting thing
38:48 is most of our body uses glucose as a main energy source. while our gut use the butrate one part of the short-term fatty acid as a major energy to regenerate. So if we start to lack the amount of the short-term fatty acid, it affects on the regeneration of our gut which cause breaking down maybe some malfunction of these filters which we call leakage. got is leaking little by little. And nowadays from the year of the 2020 the number of publications in terms of this leaky gut gut leakiness is
39:33 increasing dramatically because nowadays scientists start to understand this uh gut leakiness may be the one of the cause of this chronic inflammation in the modern society causing whole different spectrum of the brain dysfunction immune dysfunction metabolic dysfunction and that that chronic inflammation might be caused. Maybe the as a hypocratus said all disease begins in the gut and now we start to maybe maybe this gut leakiness out of the shortage of the short- chain fatty acid might be the one of the clue of these questions. So that that maybe I can explain in terms of the immune relationship of the short- chain fatty
40:20 acid. >> Whoa. Thank you. That's >> like that's like a class of anatomy. [laughter] >> Yes. We are going deeper and deeper. >> What what what now we we we hear about this. We talk about factoring our body and our guts and before that we discussed with um Dr. Williamson about phytonutrients. And now let's let both of them interact with each other. >> Phytonutrients on the one hand, microbiome on another. How do they work together? First of all, um let Dr. ology rest a while and now Dr. Williamson >> yes please please >> let's do regenerate your gut first Dr. Williamson, how can you explain the way that these two microbiomes on the one hand and phytonutrients work together?
41:07 So if you have your food, your plant-based food or your supplements containing phytonutrients, then what do you do? You eat them. >> So you put them in your mouth and you chew. So this in terms of plants like fruits and vegetables releases some of the phytonutrients and you start to then digest and break down the plant material, the plant cell wall and release the phytonutrients into the gut. But at that point they still have a long way to go to get to your factory. >> Yes. >> Because the first thing that happens is that after you chew, they go into the stomach. So the stomach is quite acidic
41:52 but the good news is most phytonutrients are stable in that acidic environment. So the digestion continues and in the stomach some of more of the material like the um starches and so on are starting to break down but most of the real digestion starts once your food or supplement or drink leaves the stomach and goes into the small intestine. So the small intestine is actually where the serious business of absorption occurs. So many phytonutrients are absorbed in the small intestine. That's before they even reach to the microbiome factory. But there's very serious and strict chemical rules as to whether the
42:40 phytonutrients are absorbed in the small intestine or whether they actually then travel down and reach the microbiome. So the rules are that if for the phytonutrient if it's as a molecule if it's small enough and if it's hydrophobic enough which means it likes fat likes lipids then it will often diffuse through the small intestine and be absorbed into the bloodstream and therefore it can have if you like a fairly immediate effect on some of the health parameters like blood vessel dilation. So it can actually help immediately improve blood ve uh improve blood pressure and also protect against that postprandial stress that I talked
43:27 about before. So that's for certain types of phytonutrients. other types of phytonutrients um and there's you know pages and pages on this in the in the literature but other phytonutrients they are not absorbed in the small intestine even though it the small intestine has surface area of a tennis court if they don't go through the body doesn't doesn't actually absorb them it's it's a very um strict and precise system so the micro the phytonutrients that are not absorbed will then reach the microbiome where the microbiome will convert those phytonutrients into other things and sometimes convert a phytonutrient which
44:13 is not active into one that is active and beneficial. So the the the the microbiome, this factory is actually very very important for some phytonutrients but not for all. And I think we have now a good understanding which ones go in through the small intestine and which ones go through the small intestine, they're not absorbed and they reach the microbiome factory. And I think that's one of the things that really has helped our understanding because there's two types of uh metabolites which we call the the resulting compounds. uh the ones that are absorbed in the small intestine might have a certain activity um such as against blood vessels as against anti being anti-inflammatory but
44:59 then the ones that go down to the bacteria in the gut and that are then converted by the bacteria in the gut can be absorbed in the colon but they will have different biological activities. So we get a double benefit from a particular uh dose of certain phytonutrients at the small intestine level and then at the at the colon level. >> So there is quite a lot that a phytonutrient has to do to navigate the gut in order to reach the the the factory. >> Yes. >> Well after having listened to your answer AI can never beat human beings. [laughter] >> You are superior than any AIS in the world. Wonderful.
45:45 >> That's Dr. Williamson version. Let's hear a different version from Dr. G. How do these two work as partners, please? So, it's it's not different version, but it's the same version. I totally agree with uh uh Dr. Gary Williamson and and uh like it's a vice versa. So these phytonutrients uh they promote the growth of these uh our employees the microbiome because they are the source of the energy for this microbiome. And at the same time as we increase the diversity and the amount of the microbes they uh start to utilize the phytonutrient convert them into the
46:30 active compound like many cases like uh some of our studies that we do is those phytonutrients uh many cases they have a difficulty to be dissolved in the water and to be absorbed into our body. Actually they have to be dissolved in the water like these phytonutrients if they are dissolving water easily then if it rains the trees will start to melt down though that that that never happens. So so the dissolving them into the water they need the bacteria activity to put the hydrogens around it and they start to dissolve in the water so they have a better absorption into our body. Sometimes they make a total structural changes like when we consume
47:16 the isoflavone isoflavone or soy protein they convert the structure of these uh into the uh chemical so-called echo and this aqua is like a astroan like a peptide. So they they uh they do very big things in terms of the woman health uh because they are like a GRP like a astroen like a peptide. So uh there are so many mysteries and still the secrets about this bio conversion of our employees using the raw materials. So it's a same thing as Gary said and and it's a still there are so many things to study about it. Well, in relation to the previous questions that I asked both of
48:03 the gentlemen. Now, next question is how does these microbiome influence the way we absorb transform and benefit from the plant derived nutrients or phytonutrients? Any one of you wish to volunteer to be the first Dr. Williamson? >> Yeah. Yeah. The better version of the AR is superior to the AI. So as I said before the the there's a long way to go to get to the factory. So the compounds which are absorbed the the phytonutrients which are absorbed in the small intestine can have a benefit. they go into the bloodstream and they can have a benefit then in various tissues maybe the liver maybe the skin maybe the the muscles um because they've been
48:48 absorbed immediately and so therefore they can travel to these organs in the blood circulation but as I said only some of the phytonutrients are absorbed in the small intestine so the ones that are not absorbed in the small intestine if there was no microbiome they would then have no effect. So part of the phytonutrients would have an effect but the rest of it wouldn't. So the microbiome then takes the phytonutrients that cannot be absorbed and makes them into a form that can be absorbed. Now the way it does this is you have your phytonutrient which can be a molecule like queretin or asperitin or any of the flavonoids or all sorts of
49:34 different phytonutrient molecules. So many of those are covealently chemically attached to one or more sugar molecules. Now this makes a big big difference as to whether they go through the small intestine route or the microbiome route. So one of the most common uh phytonutrients that we uh that we uh consume is called routin that has the glucose and ramnos molecules attached. Now the human body as you mentioned does not contain all of the enzymes we need for digestion. So that molecule if we didn't have a microbiome would be wasted because that ramnos sugar cannot be digested by people. It's
50:20 almost like a fiber. So fiber cannot be digested. However, once that travels through the intestine, the small intestine and reaches the factory, the the the microbiome, then the micro the microbiome has the ability to remove that ramnos sugar, that glycopiber. So, it takes it off. They the the bacteria are very happy to eat that sugar. They also eat the glucose which is also attached. They love the sugars. Um and that releases then the phytonutrient. itself like queretin, hesperitin, whatever and then that can be absorbed into the into the bloodstream. So that is a way in which the that all of that would be wasted. So
51:06 that's a way in which the body actually can use the phytonutrient which it wouldn't be able to do if the microbiome was absent. >> So it's it's it's it's a way of making more of the phytonutrients that we consume. Wow, that sounds sophisticating. Anyway, Dr. G, anything to add to the answer of Dr. Williamson? >> Yes. Yes. Oh, I I totally agree and maybe like uh if I Gary talked about very difficult science everything. So I maybe if I can add on maybe another example. So it's an oversimplification yet if you think about the cow they only
51:52 eat the grass. >> Yeah. >> But they have a a different gastrointestinal system compared to human they have a extra factory in their body extra fermentation chamber and they start to grow huge amount of muscle out of just eating the grass. If you think about it, the humans like if we can have a extra fermentation chamber that if we only eat the brass and if we can start to grow the muscle like that, that's a that's a whole new story that we can think of. So that that's the how it works that even the cow and some uh uh uh the animals that even using certain uh vegetables and the grass they can start to grow huge amount of muscle because but there are there is a totally different gene sets in those animals as
52:37 well. But that's how the microbes work. they they hh digest the undigestible things and provide the extra energy and then co-actors and vitamins for the uh human health and that's uh that's that's how it works and nowadays uh long before we thought the bacteria is the enemy of the human health. So we've been just killing those bacteria every day using the antibiotics and there were times that we were using the antibiotics like a candies that that we but nowadays we start to understand the importance of this microbiome bacteria at the same time the energy of the bacteria and how do they work together. This is a very modern science that that that I I as a
53:26 microbiologist I start to feel very amazing that uh my decision of my hair and uh uh uh disease is not solely dependent on my gene or the lifestyle but what kind of bacteria do I have in my gut that decides on my disease that we are living in a definitely amazing era >> this is totally new approach. Yes, [laughter] depends on your microbiome inside you. Well, it seems that Dr. Gigi feels a bit lonely. So, [laughter] >> I'm learning a lot. >> Well, you're very important. You're the bright star here. Well, if you follow the journey of phytonutrients from the food that we ate, what happened next? Shall I start with Dr. Gigi Lady first
54:12 this time? >> I think Dr. Williamson and Dr. G talked a little bit about it. Um but when we eat fruits and vegetables or any plants that you have in your diet, you eat it, put in your mouth, you chew, it goes into your stomach and there is some digestion that's happening. It goes down to your small intestine. There is some absorption, right? But then there's also still more metabolism going on. When I was going to school, I also learned that you just absorb your nutrients and that's it. But I think what we're learning in this conversation is that the colon also play a very large role. So when I say colon, large intestine is also the same thing. There is a lot of work that's happening in your gut microbiome that's transforming these
55:00 phytonutrients. What you see in the food is not always what we absorb. There is some transformation process there that makes the science that much more amazing. And so it's more important to think about variety here. Um, think about the colors. Uh, we've talked about phytonutrients a lot, but one thing as a consumer what might be helpful to know is, well, how do I know what plants have what phytonutrients? The color of your phytonutrients often dictate what kind of phytonutrients are in there. So that's why most of the time and and Amway used to talk a lot more about this too is to eat the colors of the rainbow. And so as we think about the phytonutrients we consume, the variety
55:45 that we have, the types of phytonutrients we have, it all starts with the diverse diet. And then our body does amazing things in transforming it so that we can absorb it into nutrition that is helpful for us to maintain a healthy gut but also health a health that we can um be satisfied with. >> Yeah. Dr. G and Dr. Williamson maybe you want to contribute your answers into this question as well. Tell us start with Dr. G. >> Yes. uh that we we talked about it that we eat and we chew digest what we can do and rest of it that we start to uh we provided for our microbiome. So uh it's not uh that what happens next uh before we think about what happens next that uh
56:32 uh from this kind of conversation if we can start to think about how do we bal how do we provide energy in the balanced way for myself and the microbiome that I think that's a good learning point. Yes Dr. Williamson please. So I think that phytonutrients are actually very similar to nutrients in this respect. So if you think about what you eat, let's say you eat starch. So the first thing the body does is digest the starch into glucose which it then absorbs as sugar as as a as an energy source. So what you cons what you actually absorb into the body is different to what you eat. If you eat fats then most of those are first
57:17 digested broken down into more simple fatty acids which are then absorbed. So the phytonutrients are exactly the same. Many of them have to be partially digested before you can absorb them which is the same process I mentioned as removing the sugars to allow the absorption. So the digestive process really follows all the same rules for the phytonutrients as it does for the for the nutrients. Um and then we end up reaching the factory and we get some uh absorption after the digestive processes. >> So far we have discussed about microbiome and phytonutrients. In other words that Dr. Gas mentioned earlier on is cellular health. Yeah. First of all,
58:04 what is it and what as which aspect of cellular health are most critical for extending our health span? If we have some times, I wish you to link together cellular health and the way that phytonutrients and microbiome work together for the cellular health. Dr. Gigi, please. So I think cellular health sounds like a very complicated term but in fact if you just reverse the word cell the health of your cells is what we're really talking about and if you think about your cells very much like the microbes in your gut there are the employees that you run in your corporations and I think I talked earlier about in our conversation that your cells make up your organs your tissues it makes up different parts of
58:51 your body and so when your cells are not healthy, you're not healthy. So, how do we take care of those? Right? We've talked a lot about phytonutrients. Those can actually have a a huge effect on it. But I do also believe that healthy behaviors have a big impact. As a registered dietician, I will be the first one to tell you that diet is critical. Whether you have it in food, in supplementation, those are always important. But I also want you to focus and think about your quality of sleep. When you're resting, your cells are repairing and they're recovering from your daily life. And it's normal processes that we want to be able to encourage so that it's a normal part of who you are, whether you are 20, 50, 90.
59:39 And so sleep is quite critical, but we also want to think about what we do during the day. Just like us, our microbes love movement. So physical activity and exercise is something that you can actually benefit from your health span. And of course, no one really does well when they're stressing too much. So stress management is a large part as well. And to be honest, cellular health and health span is not some magic pill. You don't wake up one day, take this magical product, and your life health span is automatically extended. In fact, it's your day-to-day practice that is actually quite important. It's your consistent day in and dayout behaviors that is truly what
1:00:24 is going to extend your health span and truly be able to achieve that higher quality of life that you're looking for. And so, I will leave it to Dr. G and Dr. Williamson to go a little deeper. But for me, it's all about day-to-day practice and healthy behaviors in those categories. >> Dayto-day practice. Wow, that's great. two gentlemen what have you to say about this cellular health >> so as I mentioned at the very beginning I'm a biochemist so the way I think is in molecules >> and so for me cellular health is very much depends upon the molecules and their responses that you have within all of your trillions of cells in your body
1:01:12 so we have a many many different targets within the cell. So all of these molecules are important at doing certain things but some are more important than others for health span. So for example we might have uh I might take an example of we call it um it's an energy switch in the cells and this really is important for health span. It's really important for how you use energy. Whether for example you burn fat or whether you store fat, how you deal with sugar, how you deal with carbohydrate. So this is a really important switch which affects many many different processes within the cell and therefore has a fundamental effect on on on cellular health. Uh the other one
1:01:58 I'll just mention is is inflammatory or immune uh molecules. So these are things like NFCappa B um to a certain extent NRF2. These are molecules within the cell that respond to phytonutrients but are really critical at determining the health of the cell and therefore health span. So all of these targets we can look at uh we can look at in the lab we can look at in people um and I think these are probably the most critical molecular targets for looking at cellular health and as I said I think in molecules >> so that's my perspective >> you think in molecule >> I think in molecules >> okay good you are [laughter] >> chemical biologist Dr. G what have you
1:02:44 say about this >> cellular health >> oh yes Dr. Gigi and the Dr. Gary, they talked enough about it. So I fully agree with it. But I I I one thing that I want to that I was amazed working together with the MA is what the Dr. Gigi said that every day daytoday like a kind of a patterns that we build the habituation that because uh we all know how to do it but we just cannot do it because it's very very difficult to have a consistent pattern in our li in our life and building a habit is so difficult but there I I really got amazed how MA actually provide this platform to the to the to the people that uh within the
1:03:31 society they motivate each other. They uh pro make the programs to motivate each other and they make a program like uh uh in the morning how do they make a shake out of it and then uh uh it it try to provide informations to build it as a habit to the people. I I think that is a amazing kind of way to deliver the right science to the people to provide the health to the people. That is a very smart way of doing it. Yeah. Yes. That's that's my that the thing that I got amazed working together with them. So far we have been discussing 64 minutes already and I found that the three um scientists upon the stage here has an
1:04:16 incredible ability in order not to simplify massively complicating subjects into something very easy to digest. But now here's my question to Dr. Gigi. You are nutrition researcher and registered dietician. And how do you translate these complex science into practical recommendations that people follow? I get a lot of practice. Um, my daughter asks me a lot of scientific questions and so on a daily basis I have the pleasure of answering very complex things but simplify it for someone like her. In our household we don't call microbes microbes, we call them belly bugs. Um, so for me, what makes her stay
1:05:05 interested is to make terms that make sense for her, but also it's meaningful or it's attractive to her. So, she thinks that belly bugs are adorable. She's never seen one. Um, but in her imagination, bellyb bugs are amazing and they're adorable and they're cute. And as a dietician, I've lived and and a life where I work with clients and patients every day. I do understand the complexity of the science that Dr. G and Dr. Williamson do on a daily basis. How we translate that into day-to-day actions. Sometimes it's not 100% exactly the same. And so from my lens, I'm able to see what you are as a human, how you
1:05:51 behave, how you might respond, and I can change how I perform, and how I might send that message to you differently. And so that in real life, it's realistic to tell you to sleep 7 to n hours. It's realistic to tell you to eat more fiber. Those are things that we work really hard on. But at the end of the day, what we're really good at, and my dad told me this all the time when I was growing up, is that humans are very good at telling stories. And when we do, scientific theories and stories, we are telling it in this very imaginative, somewhat creative, but still based on science in ways that people stay engaged. And that's what I do when I'm running most of the time in the morning.
1:06:37 What I think of is how do I tell a better gut health story? How might I be able to translate some of these ideas of where eating fiber is easier? How might it be fun? How might I be able to explain the idea of exercise is important for gut health? It's all about storytelling. But the stories have to be meaningful to the person you're talking to. Just like how I use the term belly bugs to my eight-year-old, as a dietician, I have to think about how I send that story to a customer, to an and how I even talk to other scientists who are asking me something very complex that they haven't learned yet. >> Wow. I would wrap up in one word. Audience
1:07:22 engagement. Yeah. When we talk to each other, we don't say belly bucks. We talk microbio. Anyway, Dr. GG what has I mean why has microbiome in which we have already been discussed so far has become such an important focus globally and what are the strongest trends you see in immer emerging in preventive wellness >> microbiome is complex and I don't think and I don't imagine it being ever simple as we move forward we're only going to learn more we're only going to add more to our knowledge but microbiome whether it's the gut or the skin is complex but it's also a very pivotal pivotal and very influential part of our health and so I am not surprised that microbiome
1:08:10 has moved to the forefront of why it's important to our health few years ago you might think about gut microbiome and you might just think this area this is what it affects but in fact the conversations we're having now whether it's at Amway or with in the scientific community we're thinking about the microbiome In terms of how the gut micro and the gut microbiome is connected to all of our body, whether it's our brain, our emotional health, our skin, it's a complex relationship. I'm not going to lie to you. But this relationship is what affects our health and affects our health span. And therefore, it's important to consider how we want to take care of our gut so that we can take care of our body. Now when I think about the future of of microbiome,
1:08:57 I don't like to over complicate but I do continue to see the power of phytonutrients whether it's in food form whether it's in the way we grow the way we extract whether the way we when we eat certain foods but also the phytonutrients from extracts and supplementations that you can find those are critical. It's important that we advance the technology and how we consume these phytonutrients because let's be honest, life is only going to get busier and how might we get some of these phytonutrients into our body is really important and so as scientists it's important to think about how might we optimize this process so that collectively we can pay healthier on in different levels. >> Yep. Let's go to something very
1:09:43 practical. I mean this is a question for all three panelists. If someone wanted to improve their health span starting tomorrow, if not today, where should they begin and what are the highest impact daily habits supported by science? Shall I start with Dr. Gigi first? >> I would always advocate for food as a reg registered dietician, but I've also lived a life where changing your diet is not always easy. And I am the first to admit it. I have my challenges as well. And so changing your diet might take some time. What doesn't always take that much time to me is sleep. I don't know about you, but if I told you to all go
1:10:30 home and sleep one more hour, no one's going to ignore my recommendation or at least complain about it. We'll all welcome sleep. And why I find sleep to be so impactful is that sleep is a time where we rest and repair our tissues. Our gut does the same thing. It has this ability during the nighttime where it recovers your intestinal tissue from normal wear and tear. And so I feel like not only sleep is easy to access, but it's probably sometime something you can all do tonight. Go to bed 30 minutes earlier. Go to bed 10 minutes earlier. Those are things that you can optimize your health starting today or starting tomorrow. >> That's easy to follow. Sleep more. But
1:11:15 not everyone can sleep peacefully every night. Well, Dr. Williamson, apart from molecule, where should we start? Uh, I'm just going to have a short sleep. I think that this [laughter] is a good idea. >> That's a very good recommendation. >> Bollwood. [laughter] I think it very much depends um on your own situation. So it's almost impossible to give the same advice to everybody because people have different requirements, different ages, different amounts of exercise they do already. So any advice that we give to a whole audience would be very difficult to the sort of advice a dietician would give individually because then you would take
1:12:01 into account exactly your your own personal circumstances. Um but I think the general recommendations would be um and I always find it's very easy to say what you should do to do it yourself is always very difficult but eat less calories, do more exercise, eat more plant-based foods as a source of phyitochemicals. Increase your phytonutrient um intake. And one way to do that fairly straightforward in a fairly straightforward way is to eat less ultrarocessed foods. >> So consume uh foods which have been minimally processed or raw foods or just lightly cooked foods and reduce the number of
1:12:47 ultrarocessed foods. It's impossible to have none. But if that's that's a good way to sort of start your uh new life, uh more sleep, uh more less ultrarocessed foods and more phytonutrients. I think that would be a a good place for everybody to start. But as I said, when you're giving real dietary advice, you give it uh more individually. But that would be my general general comment. >> Dr. G extra fermentation chamber like how >> yes [laughter] like uh not going for the not transplanting an extra fermentation chamber in your body but uh what I want to say is as a microbiologist I'm not promoting any product or nothing but I to be truly about the science that uh in
1:13:34 the modern society we need to increase the uh uh amount of bacteria consumption in daily lives. Because if you think about like a 30 40 50 years ago when we didn't have any refrigerators uh and and everything that we consume was a full of bacteria all the fermented food and and can you imagine all the fruits and the raw materials not in the refrigerator and you just cook them and eat it. Our uh uh the bacteria inoculating or inoculation of the bacteria in the human body was a very high level. But nowadays ultrarocessed food like a sterilized food and frozen food and everything in the refrigerators and and lack of the
1:14:21 fermented foods. And then if you think of and even even uh a preservatives which uh are added in the food to kill the bacteria in the food but they are obviously affecting on your microbiome as well. And we are suffering from the amount of bacteria number in the human body. And every day we poop and half of the poop is actually the bacteria and we are losing a lot of amount without uh refilling the enough amount of bacteria. So like I want to advise obviously more fermented food but if you cannot do it as Dr. Gi said everyone is live be getting busier and busier that at least certain type of probiotics or at least some kind of bacteria uh it's not kind
1:15:07 of optional but as a microbiologist I would say it's kind of a mandatory it has to be one of the mandatory lifestyle in the modern society. >> Yeah. >> Well thank you very much. >> We have approximately 10 15 minutes in the end. I've got two questions. Imagine today is not 2026 but it is 2036 that's mean in the next 10 years from now. What do you I mean three of the panelists
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