Gut Health What You Need to Know

Discover the pivotal role of gut health in immunity and mood with Austin Chiang, MD. Gain essential knowledge, from microbiome insights to debunking myths.
www.webmd.com/digestive-disor...
-- TRANSCRIPT --
JOHN WHYTE
Welcome, everyone. I'm Dr. John Whyte, the chief medical officer at WebMD. We all know the importance of the heart. We know the importance of the brain. But how important is the gut? We know it functions for digestion.
What if I told you it also plays a role in our mood, in our immune function? My guest today has a new book out. It's called Gut, an Owner's Guide. Please welcome Dr. Austin Chang.
AUSTIN CHIANG
Hi, John. Thanks for having me on.
JOHN WHYTE
Well, it's great to see you, Austin. And I know you're a gastroenterologist, but still, I have to ask, why did you write this book?
AUSTIN CHIANG: Well, I felt like-- here's the book, first of all.
JOHN WHYTE
Here it is. I have my copy.
AUSTIN CHIANG
Thank you so much. Yes, so I felt that there was a need for an illustrated, colorful, and fun resource for the everyday person to learn about their gut health and understand the complexities of the system because, to your point, it's not just a transport tube for food, but there are so many other functions and other organs as well involved, including the liver, the pancreas, and a lot about care around the gut that people encounter when they go to the hospital or to the office that can be a little confusing.
And so, you know, not only does it talk about the certain gut health conditions, but also the procedures that are involved and the innovation around that. Also a lot of myths that we try to debunk in this book as well because, as somebody who is a heavy social media user, there's a ton of misinformation online that could be clarified.
JOHN WHYTE
And we're going to go over some of them, but I want to get at the fact, because we didn't always think about the microbiome 10 years ago. Now, you know, we all talk about it, but there's also the two-way communication system of the gut, rest of the body with the brain. Some people even call it the second brain. What's your thoughts on that?
AUSTIN CHIANG
Yeah, the second brain has been something that we've referred to the gut in a lot of ways because it has its own nervous system. It's able to move on its own and function on its own. But this linkage between the gut and the mind, that's something that is, you know, relatively new and it's bidirectional. So not only does the gut affect the brain, but the brain can also affect the gut in certain ways.
And this is an emerging area. There's still a lot we don't understand. It's a lot of mystery as of yet, but there's emerging research about how, you know, potentially stress and emotion can actually lead to some changes in the gut, like inflammation and potentially worsen some gut health conditions. So it's a very exciting area. There's still a lot we don't know. And I'm very transparent in the book about keeping things evidence based and, you know, making it clear that there's a lot that's yet to be discovered in this space.
JOHN WHYTE
You have a great way of communicating some complicated biologic issues. And one of my favorite sections of the book, Austin, is the poop rainbow, because let's be honest, you and I are both internal medicine physicians. You're specialized in gastroenterology. I get a lot of questions about-- a lot of questions about poop from my kids as well. But tell us about this poop rainbow.
AUSTIN CHIANG
I really appreciate you bringing it up because that's actually the whole reason why this book was brought about. Why the publisher approached me was because there's a video that I made on RUclips called "The Poop Rainbow," and they kind of wanted me to adapt my social media voice into text format into something that's easily accessible and digestible, pun intended, for the everyday reader.
And so the poop rainbow is basically talking about if you were to look at your poop and, you know, depending on what color you're seeing, could it be something, you know, more serious. And this ranges from, you know, poop being red colored, black colored, green, gray. There's a lot of variation in poop color based on what we eat, but there's a lot of, you know, conditions that potentially can lead to these changes in poop color as well.
JOHN WHYTE
How often should people poop a day? That's a question I always get asked. And if they haven't pooped in a day or so, they're worried. But we have definitions of average number of times people should poop for a week even.
Transcript in its entirety can be found by clicking here:
www.webmd.com/digestive-disor...

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