Join Dr. Pinkston on The Better Life for an enlightening deep dive into the gut microbiome. Featuring AI expert Dr. Leo Grady, founder of Jonah, this episode explores how cutting-edge technology analyzes over 200,000 medical studies to map the 30 trillion organisms living within you. Dr. Pinkston and Dr. Grady discuss the “digital twin” technology that simulates how diet and lifestyle changes impact your unique gut profile, offering a new frontier for treating depression, autoimmune issues, and chronic disease through integrative medicine.
Transcript Below
————————————————————————————————–
Hello everybody and welcome to the better life with Dr. Pinkston. I am Dr. Maryanne Pinkston and bringing you
information more on the integrative side of medicine instead of the contemporary
side. You know with integrative medicine we bring both worlds together. That’s why we call it integrating uh
integrative medicine. And so today I want to introduce to you a topic that most of you I think have heard of but if
you haven’t this is going to be very enlightening. There is a very important piece of our health and our longevity uh
called the microbiome and we are going to discuss that with somebody I think is at the top of the the food chain here in
teaching gut microbiome but also has a product that allows you to test your
microbiome. Now I was in Vegas for A4M which is the American Academy of
Anti-aging Regenerative Medicine and that is that is a place where you know
most integrative people go to learn integrative providers of any type go to learn more about digging deeper into
topics like leaky gut and the microbiome and met this wonderful individual from
um from a company called Jonah and he has developed ed a very unique testing
and uh of the microbiome but also can bring a great perspective to it and I think teach us a lot about you know what
this is and how to test for it. So, my friend Leo Grady, good morning. You are
a PhD in AI, which is amazing now that your sites have turned more into, you
know, kind of a health and wellness and longevity. And so, please dig in and
tell us who you are and how all this came to be. I’m I’m amazed by by what you’ve done, actually. So, I’m excited
to have you on. Thank you so much. It’s great to be here. Um, yeah, as you mentioned, I I did my PhD in AI over 20 years ago. I’ve
been in the healthcare industry this whole time. Uh, started off building AI for radiology at Seammens for, you know,
MRI machines and CAT scanners and ultrasound. Then I was, uh, building AI for cardiology at a company called Heart
Flow where we built a cardiovascular diagnostic test for coronary disease using AI and computational fluid
dynamics. And that was actually the first Medicare payment for an AI product in healthcare back in 2018.
Uh then I was leading a company called PJI here in New York which was a spin out of Memorial Stone Kettering doing AI
for cancer detection and tissue. And about three years ago, I started Jonah,
uh, which is an AI company focused on the gut microbiome to really analyze all of this complex data to figure out how
your microbiome is really impacting your health and also what you can do to change it and optimize it.
That’s beautiful. And so complex is uh a very good word uh to describe the
microbiome. So please introduce and what a wonderful uh you know history um your knowledge is is is immense and so please
I guess define what the microbiome is and why it’s important.
So today we’re focusing on the gut microbiome which is all of the organisms
that live inside your gut. Um, so this is bacteria, fungus, viruses,
uh, archa, you know, a whole host of different organisms that are living in your gut. Um, if you’re if you’re taking
a probiotic, if you’re one of the 48% of Americans that take a probiotic daily or almost daily,
then, uh, this is the microbiome is what you’re targeting with that probiotic, trying to introduce new organisms and
change your microbiome in a positive way. Yes. Yeah. Good. And so that microbiome though is a base of many of many
functions in our body. Processing nutrients um you know cleaning and
detoxifying uh also at the basis of helping us make our brain chemistry. I mean there’s so many different things
that the microbiome is um uh is you know important for but it also helps our
brain health and other things. So there’s many many diseases underlying that are tied to our microbiome.
anything from depression to dementia, we’re looking at cardiovascular disease starts at the mouth, too, right? Goes
all the way down. It’s not just our our intestines. So, so testing it, what
would be a a good reason to test? Because I know that there’s plenty when when the microbiome becomes
dysfunctional. So, maybe it is overgrowing kind of the bad bacteria, can overgrow yeast and fungus and
parasites and all those things. that uh that change in the microbiome is detrimental to our health. So, how does
testing it make it uh make it possible to improve our health? Well, you’re absolutely right that every
aspect of our health has been linked with the gut microbiome. So, 90% of your serotonin is produced in your gut, 50%
of your dopamine, 70% of your immune cells are in your your gut. Uh and what
we’ve seen, what the science has shown is that it’s not just GI issues that are
affected by your gut microbiome. It’s obesity. It’s metabolic disease. It is
uh diabetes. It’s um uh skin disease, cardiovascular uh mental health,
depression, anxiety, but also Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s, uh athletic performance, endurance,
osteoporosis, uh hormone health. Really, literally every aspect of your health has been
linked with the gut microbiome. Absolutely. But the the big challenge with it is
complexity. Um you know for a long time it was very hard to measure your gut microbiome. We had to use culturing or
PCR tests which you may remember from COVID. There were very uh narrow panels of just looking for a few different
organisms. But now we can do DNA sequencing at a cost point that is actually accessible
to most people. Uh, and what that means is now now we can actually sequence the DNA of everything in your gut and
identify it down to a strain level. And what’s exciting about that is now we can
really get a comprehensive picture of what’s happening in your gut. Um, the
challenge with it though is that you’re in complete data overload uh when you sequence all of these different
organisms because you know there are 30 trillion organisms that live in your gut. They change dynamically over time.
There are more than 11,000 different organisms that have been found in people’s guts and linked to their health. And yet the composition of each
person’s gut is very individualized. You may only have, you know, a few hundred different species in there. And so
trying to figure out what’s there, what amounts, what that ecosystem is saying about your health is extraordinarily
complex. Purely from a data standpoint, you get about eight gigabytes of data when you measure somebody’s gut
microbiome, which is about the equivalent of eight high resolution cat scans. Right. Right. Crazy. And with that
though, so our microbiome and its makeup different in every person can affect
their health and the potential for the diseases that they may develop, but also
for diseases that they may have now. autoimmunity um you know uniquely tied you mentioned
even osteoporosis which floored me when we discussed this in Vegas osteoporosis is even a function from our our gut
microbiome and so how does the microbiome affect health though and so I
to refine that question if the microbiome is perfect which I don’t
think anybody’s could be but there are things that might affect our microbiome from history of antibiotics
our stressors, the diet and things like that and we test for it then how can we
refine our health doing something about it you know now and and trying to affect our health forward
well when we think about the mechanisms by which the microbiome impacts our health it’s really a huge number I mean
um first of all there’s having a huge impact on what nutrients
get absorbed from our food uh the microbiome can help us break down certain organisms better than others or
certain u nutrients better than others and absorb them. Uh the gut microbiome is really important in maintaining the
lining of the gut uh so that it protects uh your your body really from different
bad actors that can live in your gut. Uh if you have a a leaky gut or or poor
intestinal lining, you can get all sorts of um you know microbes or
lipopolysaccharides or other chemicals in your bloodstream that can have a
negative impact on your health and can also cause an inflammatory response. um
there’s a direct interaction between your microbiome and your immune system in uh the production of hormones in the
stimulation of the nerve system that’s going up to your brain. Um so all of these different ways are ways in which
the gut microbiome can interact with other systems in your body. And you know
we don’t fully understand uh whether the microbiome is causing some of these health problems or just reflecting some
of these health problems. But we do know in many cases that the microbiome is playing some sort of causal role or at
least modifying the severity of these these issues. And we know that from
things like microbiome transplants uh where we can see really dramatic impacts
on people’s health but also very unpredictable um which it’s very difficult to predict based on you know
not knowing fully uh how the transplant transplanted microbiome is going to
interact with somebody’s body. Gotcha. And so in in testing too, I think that
once you establish what a normal microbiome should be and I think well let me back up too because we have not
really understood the microbiome for very long and I think in in integrative medicine we’ve understood longer than
more you know contemporary guided medicine and it’s just now it feels like
it’s just now becoming kind of exploding and becoming a a big topic. But you’ve
been on this for quite some time and the amount of studies and data and all that
are coming out, you know, how does a person begin to to, you know, filter
through that and put that together? I think you’ve come up with a very unique way of helping to do that.
It it’s really difficult. Uh, every single month there are more than 2,000 studies published on the microbiome and
the peer-reviewed medical literature. In fact, it’s almost 3,000 a month. Um, I
don’t care who you are, how dedicated you are, there’s just no way you can keep up with that many studies every
single month. And even if you did manage to read all of those studies, trying to
keep them all in your head and, you know, as you look at somebody’s microbiome test results is nearly
impossible. So, what we did at Jonah is we built an AI system to read all of those studies,
about 220,000 peer-reviewed studies in the scientific uh literature, really only looking at
human studies uh studies based off of stool samples using sequencing uh on
subjects age five and older. So, really looking at relevant studies to analyzing a person’s microbiome. And then when we
do the microbiome test on somebody, we do this shotgun magenomic sequencing. We generate all of this data. Then the AI
is able to go through each one of these studies and compare the findings from that study to your microbiome test
results and to say, are there any patterns in this person’s gut that have
been flagged in the literature and shown to be associated with different aspects of your health? So you can think of it
almost like um like if you were to do a genetic test and find that a certain gene is linked with a a certain disease
or or with you know um differences in your metabolism. We’re basically able to do the same thing from the gut with the
gut microbiome except that the gut microbiome is more complex. It’s much
more individualized and u but the good news is it’s also changeable. Uh we have a lot in our
control on how we can shape the gut microbiome. So if we do see some of these patterns that are linked with
disease or poor health, um there are ways that we can actually change them to
address them and make them better. But you have cornerstone very very well as you went through the you know test
results and showed us you know what your your um data points can do and and and
what can be done about it because most testing you know can give you information. What the heck do you do
about it? Right. And then with all the new brand new information coming out, staying up todate, you know, for
somebody a provider, let alone somebody who’s just trying to to heal their own body, uh, is is immense. It’s deep and
it’s impossible. So you you said that very eloquently. So if you are testing
and you know getting an idea of what somebody’s balance is their their um
bacterial balance and and microorganism balance is how can that you know getting
that information change what they are doing moving forward. So, so let’s say for an example, uh that
a certain disease is linked with elevated levels of an organism or maybe
uh deficient levels of another organism. Uh there’s also a whole lot of studies
on the microbiome that show how different dietary changes, lifestyle changes, supplements, probiotics will
change the levels in your organisms um in your gut. So if we know that somebody
is too high in an organism and that’s linked with the disease, the AI is also
then able to look through all of the studies on how to change your microbiome to see which which ways will actually
lower that organism or if you’re deficient in certain organisms, what are all the ways that we can uh level up
that organism in your body? And so effectively what we do is we built a simulation engine, a digital twin of
your gut that basically once we do this analysis, then we can simulate what does
this person look like if they go vegan, right? We know how going vegan is going to shift the organisms in your gut based
on all these studies. And so we can apply that shift to you virtually and make a virtual vegan version of you and
say, “Okay, does that vegan version of you uh have less of these, you know,
disease patterns, more of the health patterns?” And um and then we can do the same thing with keto, with gluten-free,
with uh different, you know, supplements or different uh exercise routines, all that have been studied in the
literature. Amazing. And based on whatever disease patterns that have been found in your gut, uh, the AI can take all of these
interventional studies and with the simulation engine, optimize for you a
personalized protocol that’s going to lower the organisms that need to be lowered, raise the organ organisms that
need to be raised in just the right way that is tailored for you personally, which is crazy. So mindblowing. And
imagine you know you go and you ask your doctor say for a hemoglobin A1C which
measures you know the um the average glucose over the last 3 months you know deter trying to detect diabetes and and
you know you get your result back what do you do with that right you know your doctor has about 10 15 minutes maybe if
you’re lucky to hand you information and teach you information on what you can do
to change that. Um, and we all know it has long-term effects and and so this is
very important. It would take hours to sit down and explain to somebody how much you know you need to do in order to
change it. What you’ve done is take a topic that is larger than life. You
know, the microbiome really is at this point. And I think once once contemporary medicine really grasps how
big the microbiome effects are on us and tries to tear that down and get, you
know, get results and and give that to patients, we’re going to find it’s, you know, next to impossible to spend the
amount of time with a patient, personalize it, and give them a, you
know, a list of things that they can actually do to change it on a timeline
and things they can do long term. term. That is what this test does. And it’s so
just mind-blowing that you know you can go get your labs done, you get nothing really except results, but on this side
you can actually get a plan of care. So it’s really really a wonderful thing
that you’ve done and the and the amount of information that a patient gets you know from that the doctor you know let
alone we we get that information we can we can filter through that but the amount of data that a patient gets is
absolutely amazing but what I love about it too and you can explain is that it updates right so if there’s 2,000 3,000
studies coming out you know every month uh you know do you have to do the test every month to get the latest data
And that’s that’s the that’s the question I pose to you. Yeah, I mean you’re absolutely right. I
mean at Jono we often say that we think that the gut microbiome testing is going
to be more common than blood work in the future uh because it does affect so much of your health and it’s so modifiable
and so actionable and so not to say that you know blood work is going anywhere uh
but it’s a different lens in which to look at your health and I see microbiome
testing to be part of somebody’s annual checkup or as part of um you a
diagnostic workup or management of of chronic issues uh in the future. And
we’re already getting there today. I mean, more and more conventional doctors are starting to use Jonah uh because it
is evidence-based, because it is transparent um and really making that available to their patients and using it
as part of the the um assessment and treatment planning. Um to your point on all of the uh the
updates, you’re exactly right. I mean, with this AI engine, uh, the AI engine is is capable of reading all of those
new studies that come out every single month. And if you log back in and look at your Jonah results, those are going
to be updated with all the latest research. Now, that’s not going to shift so much from month to month because, you
know, there’s already a huge body of literature out there and a lot of studies that have already been done. Yes. But as that literature accumulates,
as new science starts to come out and shed light on different things, you’re going to see those results get updated
um you know, really in perpetuity uh forever. We’re going to keep uh updating
those results. Now, a year from now, your microbiome may have changed and so you may want to retest and reanalyze,
but we’re going to keep uh the reanalyzing the data that you had, you
know, the last time you did your Jonah results. Absolutely. So, and I love how you mentioned this should become a part
of a preventative care visit. Um, yeah, I that’s an understatement. I really
believe as you do that this should be a part of a preventative care update. So you’re doing that and then if you have a
disease which almost everything is linked to microbiome then you can use it
to continue to follow a patient and ensure that they are improving um and
that you’re getting you know getting somewhere in their in their management. Say somebody gets a bad sinocitis has to
take a lot of antibiotics you know you get cornered you have to do that you can find out how much that has changed at
that point. I don’t think people realize I I heard a stat, correct me if I’m wrong, but I heard a a stat that, you
know, taking a Zpack can alter your microbiome for up to two years. I mean,
it instantly changes it and it may take two years to recover it. Uh, and I’m not sure we ever do honestly ever do uh
recover it. And so, if we can step back for just a second and maybe go over a few things that affect your, you know,
how do we come to have microbiome issues? I mean we start at birth with um
you know you come through the mother’s vaginal canal you you know collect all of the bacterials on your skin and and
that you know gets into your system through the the mouth and and uh you know establishes a good population there
and from there you know you get antibiotics through your childhood you you dietary needs change as you grow and
all of that but what other things can affect your microbiome and and cause disease down the
Well, you’re right. It it starts at birth. Um whether a baby is born vaginally or through cacaian actually
will see their microbiome quite differently. Nurse’s hands, right? Like nursing hand. If you’re C-section, the nurse takes you
to the you know to the the warmer and and you know that could be our mother’s
hands or whatnot. That may be where they collect it and that’s not the ideal situation, right?
Well, it it has an impact, right? And whether the the mother is nursing or whether there’s formula also has an
impact because a nursing mother is actually passing organisms through the
her milk into the baby that help the baby digest the milk and you know
ultimately also help seed the baby’s gut microbiome. Um a lot of things can
affect it uh over the course of a person’s life. Uh you mentioned antibiotics. Um but obviously diet uh
lifestyle uh geography um you know environmental factors um
even you know like temperature humidity um all these different things can affect
a person’s gut microbiome. Uh but also surprising things like if you have food
poisoning and you know you’re vomiting for a few days, you know, you’ve we’ve
seen studies where you know one round of food poisoning can permanently change a person’s gut microbiome.
Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be worse. Um but it may be different.
Um, you know, one researcher actually uh was studying his microbiome, measuring it every day for a year and he got food
poisoning during that and you saw for about two weeks after his microbiome was
just in chaos. It was just going all over the place and then it stabilized into something that was different than
before he had um the food poisoning. And I heard him give a talk recently and he
said after that all of his um seasonal allergies went away and he credits like
that change in his microbiome with uh impacting his seasonal allergies. I mean
it’s hard to say on a you know a single case but um certainly you can see that
like a very permanent change in his gut microbiome after that that single episode of food poisoning
which is interesting because I think most of the time we think getting certain bacterial infections or viral
infections or whatnot are always bad for us not necessarily I think by the time
we die I I think our our DNA uh is incorporated you know maybe 70% of
change and you know and and into something viral and it can change us for the better. So there can be kind of a
symbiotic relationship there. So that’s that’s you I think a point you you um um
shed light on there. And so I I think that um you know we’ll we’ll take a
short break here in a second and come back and talk a little bit about the test and how to get it and and uh um
I’ll give you a chance here if you have something to add to that, but I want people to know where to find you, but please add add to your thought there.
Oh, I was just going to say, I mean, you’re right. Your microbiome can change for the better, it can change for the worse. That’s why I think it’s important
to keep an eye on it and to monitor your microbiome at least once a year. Yes, absolutely. If not, uh, disease
management sooner than that, which is is terrific. So, yeah, we’re going to talk more about how to access that and and
whatnot, but where can people find out more information from you? So, you can go to our website, uh,
Jonah.alth. Uh you can find us on Instagram, on LinkedIn, on Facebook. Uh
and you can also find me personally in those places. Um and I, you know, I always welcome connections and direct
outreach, which is great. And so please keep in mind, too, it’s J NA uh instead, you
know, I think people want to add an H at some point. So J O N A and
great website and great information. You can also find out more if you just go to mine drp betterlife.com as well as some
other great topics uh for the almost the last four years which is fantastic. And
so we are going to take a very short break come back on the other side and talk about uh more about this this
wonderful wonderful testing. Depression, anxiety, low energy, weakness. These are just some symptoms
of low B12 levels. And the absorbable B12 folate supplement that’s helping people declare victory over depression
symptoms is Denovo Plus B12 by Magna Pharmaceuticals. Patients with symptoms
of depression often exhibit low levels of folate and vitamin B12. The human body needs sufficient folate intake to
produce the essential neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. These neurotransmitters alleviate
feelings of sadness, anxiety, and gloom. What makes Denovo Plus B12 so successful? Donovo Plus B12 contains
readily absorbable folate and B12. That means it’s more successful at correcting
the root cause of your deficiency, not just the symptoms. Whether you are suffering with low energy, depression,
fatigue, or anxiety, you owe it to yourself to learn more at magnb.com.
That’s magnb.com. Please let us know at checkout that you heard about Denovo Plus B12 on the
better life with Dr. Pinkston. I appreciate Magna and all of their help
in the last couple of years. They are a wonderful group of people and uh small little company and and definitely
appreciate that. So we are back with Leo Grady and talking about Jonah microbiome
testing. Uh I wanted to ask you something too uh you know kind of before we get to um the you know actual testing
and that is that there will be therapies that are available and you know kind of
delineate those a bit from you know dietary which I think is most important
dietary lifestyle all of those things but also there can be some supplemental
changes that people can make and those are things that you highlight uh in the results as well uh knowing that people
need to take this to their provider of course and and incorporate that you know personally but and so everything is
suggestion. Uh but uh tell us kind of the different ways that you know patients can take their uh get their
testing done and then take their results and and if they can do that on their own if their doctor isn’t quite open to the
thought of microbiome testing can they do that on their own or you know ask their provider or how does this work?
Uh most people do it through the provider. Uh however uh we do offer it on our our website. Anyone can go and
order it uh directly from the website. Um and in terms of how to action on it,
uh you can play with your own digital twin uh on you know if you order it yourself where you can tell uh the AI to
optimize different aspects of your gut microbiome if you’re more concerned about one you know disease pattern than
another. uh you can have the AI really try to optimize the uh the protocol for
targeting certain uh patterns in your gut microbiome that that you may be more concerned about. And we try to make it
easy for you to enact these recommendations as well. So, you know, once you have this personalized
protocol, we give you a a grocery list that is tailored for you that you can
take to the store with you and, you know, you can go shopping according to it and that everything on that list will
be uh in accordance with the protocol. Uh so, we really try to make it easy for people to to follow. Uh we do make uh
recommendations on supplements and probiotics uh but not specific brands. uh and we made the decision not to sell
probiotics ourselves, not to uh make them, not to recommend specific companies. And the reason for that is
really comes down to trust. Um there is so much snake oil in the microbiome
world and people making promises and really not uh being evidencebacked and
transparent about it. And so we really wanted to remove any uh concern about
bias of trying to upsell somebody. And so we made that decision to uh only
recommend strains or or supplements uh in the the generic form uh based on
existing studies that have been published in the peer-reviewed literature. Uh but we don’t actually
recommend particular brands or or sell any of that our ourselves. So we’ll tell you, you know, find a probiotic that
contains these strains or avoids these strains. Uh but then we don’t tell you, you know, who to go by,
which is wonderful. So that was the thing I think that struck me the most as we visited about a lot of things in
Vegas was the integrity behind all of this. And you know that’s what we what I
try to bring to my um my my audience and and to my patients is you know the fact
that integrity is very important and trust is very important and I think the results that you you get from uh from
this microbiome testing is is beyond amazing. What I love about it too and and I want to highlight what you said is
that you do get a a nice list of like the grocery list of the dietary
recommendations. You can also though look at you get a laundry list of
different disease states different potential for disease states or or uh based on a kind of a questionnaire at
the beginning of what are you experiencing what is your history. So that is how that gets personalized.
Correct. How can how explain how you you know kind of come up with that personalization.
So we ask in the beginning uh if you’re experiencing um you know bloating, if you’re
experiencing skin rashes, um you know a huge list of uh potential issues,
fatigue, but we also ask about any diagnoses that you have that we should be aware of. Sure. um
we ask about your diet, we ask about your sleep patterns, really try to understand you currently. Um the answers
that you provide in that intake don’t affect the analysis, right? Because your analysis is based just purely on what we
measure in your gut. And so if we see certain organisms, they’re linked to certain diseases, we’re going to tell
you that regardless of, you know, how you answer those questions. However, when it comes to the action plan, uh
that’s where your responses have a bigger impact because we really want to tailor that to you and to the things
that you’re concerned about. So, if you say, “I’m you know, experiencing
um you know, constipation, depression, fatigue, but I’m not experiencing you know, certain other things.” Even if we
see evidence of of other issues in your microbiome, the default is going to be
to target on optimizing for what you’re experiencing, what you’re reporting. And if we find that you’re already doing
something or your your diet already contains something that would be, you know, recommended or indicated, then
that’s that’s not going to be part of your personalized protocol because you’re already doing it. Uh likewise, if
you say, you know, I have a lactose allergy or something like that, then we’re not going to be recommending
lactose uh in that personalized protocol. So, the intake is really important. It doesn’t affect the
analysis. It doesn’t affect what we measure in your microbiome or what that means for your health, but does affect
uh the personalization of the protocol that that gets calculated for you, which is fantastic. So, so
you are also collecting data on people and personal information and I know many
people very concerned about keeping their information uh private and so you do that and explain how that
work because I know when 23ME for instance went down there was a lot of DNA information on patients that was
sold to another company etc. So, I know that’s that’s a huge concern. Another area of trust and integrity here. I’d
love for you to explain. Yeah. Um, we take privacy extremely uh
seriously at Jonah. So, first of all, we we comply with HIPPA. Um, we’re not
technically required to uh but we are fully compliant with HIPPA. We have
controls in house uh that really prevent access to people’s data. So even myself
as the CEO if somebody asks me to review their results with them I have to file a
request form um I have to show that the the person consented to it uh we put
that consent in you know in a database so that uh we know that somebody
authorized me to look at their results and only then uh am I able to actually
access somebody’s results. So uh we really put in place a lot of privacy
protections. The other part of that is security really ensuring that it’s not easy to be hacked and putting in you
know modern security uh processes and protocols but separating out the um the
personal health information from any data or or intake information. Um, so
that if we do look at aggregate data of, you know, organisms that are trending or
or whatnot in in the population, that’s completely separated from any identifying information about an
individual. Um, you know, you mentioned the example of 23 and me. Obviously,
genetics are um very unique to an individual. I mean, that’s how we we solve crimes uh now to see somebody. Uh
but that’s less true with the gut the gut microbiome. Um because your gut microbiome can change. Two people can
have the same gut microbiome. It’s extremely rare. Um but your your gut microbiome is going to change. And so
it’s not doesn’t have the same sort of uh individualized ID capacity that your
genetics will. Absolutely. And thank you for highlighting that because it’s very very
important. And one thing I kind of want to back up on a little bit that I I feel uh was left out. Um my fault that uh the
importance of the microbiome and oral health because that most people don’t
again we think of the intestine you know right we think of the gut as the just the intestine but there is a huge impact
from oral health and uh can you go over that a bit? Well, I mean the oral
health, the mouth is the entry point to the GI system, right? Thank you. Yes. So, um, so not only is everything that
gets into the GI tract coming in through the the mouth in the first place, um, but but even your your your oral
microbiome plays an important role in your health. You know, me many people don’t realize that the tonsils and the
adenoids are actually parts of your immune system that are scanning things that come into your mouth uh for, you
know, a need for an immune response. Um, you know, bits of food that that get uh
in your mouth uh if you’re not flossing, etc., etc., you know, that can
ultimately result in uh perodontal disease, uh things getting in your
bloodstream through uh your your oral cavity, you know, can have a huge huge
impact on your health. And we’re seeing a lot of studies that have shown that the oral microbiome is linked to, you
know, everything from mental health to rheumatoid arthritis. Um, however, it’s
just much less studied than the gut and most of the studies have looked at it uh from the standpoint of the the
entryway to the gut rather than its own ecosystem on its own.
But I think we’re going to learn much more about that over the over time. And I do think we will see a world in the
future where we’re monitoring our oral microbiome as well as our gut microbiome. Absolutely. And I’ll highlight too as
far as testing goes that you know patients can access on their own. But I think if you if you do that and you just
stand on on results and and read all of this and and interpret on your own that
you’re missing out on a huge amount of assistance that you can get in changing
your health and making your health better. And a great qualified provider, you know, who understands the microbiome
and leaky gut is a is a huge necessity. And I say provider because there are plenty of nurse practitioners and PAs,
physicians who, you know, are well verssed in this. And so please, if you do, you know, get do this on your own,
get your results, please contact somebody and, you know, go to a trusted provider and let them assist you in
deciphering how much of this information is there. I think people want to diagnose themselves, you know, uh and
that that can be a little bit of a a dangerous road. Do you agree? Oh, 100% 100%. We always recommend
talking to your doctor or provider uh about any of your your health results
and and for a lot of reasons. Um you know, one is that uh obviously they can
help you contextualize uh your microbiome results. You know, at Jonah,
our AI system is reading all of the studies on the microbiome and doing these simulations for the the gut
microbiome, but there’s more to your health than your gut microbiome. Even as important as it is, you know, we’re not
looking at your blood work. We’re not looking at your hormones. We’re not looking at um you know, you as as an
individual, we’re looking at your microbiome. And so if you if we’re giving you recommendations based on your
gut microbiome, but we’re missing information about, you know, your your blood work or or something else, you
know, that’s really where your doctor or your your health care provider can step in and and integrate all of that
information and and put it together for you. Um, you know, at another angle on
this, you know, if we find some sort of, you know, DNA from a pathogen or a
parasite in your gut, you know, that may require some sort of medical attention. And uh, and and it
may not as well. I mean, just being colonized doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a problem. But again, this is something
you should be addressing with your health care provider and not trying to, you know, go on a cleanse or something
like that on your own. Um it’s really something that that requires um you know professional
attention. Thank you. I appreciate that because it it really I think a lot of people are are learning. I encourage that learning
much about their health and and their their uh own bodies uh and you know what their potentials are but I still think
we need plenty of of guidance from that aspect. So thank you. Yeah and we really try to facilitate
that learning as well. So if you look at um you know at Jonah and you click
around in your results you know if you take any disease or any health condition
um and you click on say fatigue you’ll see all the organisms that have been linked to fatigue you’ll be able to
access all of the studies that have linked those organisms to fatigue. we actually link you out to the source
studies and um and similarly if we’re making recommendations you can click on
you know why fermented foods what are fermented foods doing to my body uh what are they doing to my microbiome why is
that important to me and then again link out to all the studies that have established you know how fermented foods
are changing your your microbiome and then also even if you just want to go deep on some organism and look at you
know bifidobacterium or lactobacillus you we’ll pull up all of the different literature on those for you. Uh tell you
what it’s been connected to in your health and really just tell you a lot more about those organisms. So for those
um in the audience that are just really interested and want to go deep uh you
can spend hours just like around and learning through Jonah. We try to design it in a way that if all
you want are answers, you can go in, you can get answers. Um but if you really want to go deep you know there’s sort of
like an endless well that you can go through rabbit hole which is important. I want
uh patient people to audience to understand that I’m learning a lot too you know as a as a provider I feel like
I’m well versed on the microbiome but I can tell you I know about that much of you know that much really there’s much
to learn. So encourage your provider if they’re not, you know, if this is something that’s new to them, encourage
them that this can help them learn as well. We’re always learning and changing and growing. That’s the responsibility
of a good provider is to to keep learning. So you know, you can encourage that. I think sometimes the information
like this can be a little intimidating to a a country doctor that, you know, I went to medical school a long time ago.
Uh but this is uh this is an important part of our learning as well, and I encourage that. So that’s great. We
actually just launched a clinical education series as well for doctors. It’s taught by our chief medical officer
who’s a a GI a gastroenterenterologist um and is on the governing board of the
the American gastroenterological association and just really very prominent doctor. And so that education
series is really aimed at doctors uh who haven’t you know been able to necessarily keep up with all the latest
on the microbiome. Um but that’s also available you know through the clinical
portal that a provider gets when they sign on with Jonah. Beautiful. Beautiful. So please
recommend this to your provider uh open that door because this is this is phenomenal. I am significantly impressed
with what you have done and applaud uh not only that what you’ve done but your
integrity behind it and appreciate that as well. I think this is this is the
future. uh you know again you mentioned this is not the only thing uh that we
have to focus on when we look at patients but this is significant and thank you for taking that on cuz
somebody had to do that. Have we left out anything any words that uh or
anything uh topics that you wanted thought might be good to address for the audience?
No, I think maybe the only thing I would mention is that um you know the reason that we called the company Jonah is
because of the uh the story of Jonah and the whale of Jonah going inside the belly of the whale and emerging
enlightened and it’s really a uh a story of personal transformation and you know
taking control of your own destiny which I thought was just a beautiful metaphor for what we’re trying to do uh at the
company at Jonah of going inside the gut bringing forth that wisdom and really
helping people achieve whatever transformation they’re looking for, whether it’s about getting healthier or
getting more fit or losing weight or whatever it is. We really want to help support them and facilitate them with
all the information about their gut. Absolutely. I’m so glad you mentioned that because that was that was wonderful
when we heard uh that part of the story too. How this get and Jonah, how how does that how does a name Jonah, you
know, come to to um encompass the microbiome? I think it’s a beautiful story. So, I appreciate you so much and
I look forward to getting my own testing done. We’re going to do that at the turn of the year here. Me, the husband, the
kids, everybody. I really do think this is very important and uh and applaud it. Where can people find you?
Uh you can go to our website at jonah.health. Uh or you can find us on social media, Instagram, um Facebook,
LinkedIn, uh and me personally too on on all of those platforms, you know. Please reach out. I love to hear from people.
Yeah, that’s wonderful. And so remember, Jonah is j N A doesn’t have the H on the end. U so Jonah.alth and then you can go
to my website as well, drpetlife.com and find out all this information and
links, but also some other shows which uh uh there’s some shows on leaky gut way back there. So please scroll back
and find find the those older shows. and I hope to see you again one day with
some fantastic updates and new information. Uh this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for everything that
you’re doing and for your education today. And uh I hope that everybody has a fantastic week. Take care of each
other out there as always. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. It’s been a lot of fun.
