Dr. Steven Gundry: Hey everybody, it’s almost time. My new book Gut Check will be launched January 9th, 2024, and I couldn’t be more excited for you and of course for me. I want to give you a few teasers about what’s in store for you in the new book. First up, and actually the first chapter, is all about a fascinating parasite called toxoplasmosis. Now, women, you probably know that if you’re pregnant, you are supposed to avoid cats and you’re supposed to have your partner scoop the poop because you don’t want to get infected with toxoplasmosis because it can actually damage your baby. Now, toxoplasmosis, like many parasites, has basically a two-stage life cycle, and it has to get into an intermediate host to find its way into its final resting place, which in the case of toxoplasmosis, as you probably figured out, is a cat.
Now, toxoplasmosis has chosen as its primary intermediate host a rodent, a rat. Now, that seems in a way rather dumb because rats in general have an intense fear of cats. In fact, even the smell of cat urine will make a rodent scramble in the other direction, and certainly the sight of a cat will make the rodent squeal and run away. But what toxoplasmosis does, the rodent acquires toxoplasmosis by drinking toxoplasmosis water that a cat has pooped in, and toxoplasmosis enters the rat and does some remarkable rewiring of the rat’s brain. It actually changes the reward center of the rat to, number one, not only not fear the smell of cat urine, but to actually be sexually attracted to cat urine. Number two, it changes the dopaminergic centers of the rat brain so that the rat gets rewarded for seeking out the cat, seeking out cat urine. In other words, it actually gets excited so that the rat runs towards danger, runs towards the smell of cat urine, which of course allows the cat in waiting to eat the rodent.
So this single-cell organism can totally take over the brain of a mammal, a rather advanced creature, a single-celled organism. Why is that so important? Well, fascinatingly, in some parts of the world, humans happen to be one of the favorite foods of big cats, tigers, leopards, and it turns out that humans can be infected with toxoplasmosis. And some interesting things happen to humans that are infected with toxoplasmosis. One is, humans lose a lot of their fear, they become more reckless. People who are heroes, who do things out of the ordinary are frequently infected with toxoplasmosis, and that explains a lot. Chimpanzees, who can get infected with toxoplasmosis, in fact lose their fear of leopard and tiger urine, they hate leopard and tiger urine, and they become more interested. Wolves in Yellowstone Park who are infected with toxoplasmosis are 46 times more likely to become pack leaders who, of course, are bolder and take more chances. Why would toxoplasmosis infect a wolf? Well, it turns out that the wolf’s main predator is a mountain lion, a cougar, get the wolf to head towards the cougar.
So my point is, and you’re going to be rather impressed, that a little single cell organism can control just about everything that happens to you. The point of the book is, wait till you see what the hundred trillion bacteria that live in our gut, that live in our mouth, that live in our skin will do for you or against you depending on whether or not you make them happy or make them mad. But stay tuned, you’re going to have to read the book for that.
Okay, number two, there’s exciting, maybe very disappointing new evidence about that sugar molecule that I’ve written about in other books called Neu5Gc. Animals, beef, lamb and pork, deer, buffalo have a sugar molecule in their flesh and in their milk called Neu5Gc, capital G. You and I have a sugar molecule that lines the wall of our gut, that lines the walls of our blood vessels, that lines the blood-brain barrier, and that lines our joints called Neu5Ac, capital A. Those two molecules only differ by one molecule of oxygen. Now, here’s the bad news. Every time we eat Neu5Gc-containing foods or drink Neu5Gc-containing milk, we instantaneously make antibodies to Neu5Gc. We believe it is a foreign substance, and we make antibodies against it, just like you make antibodies when you get a vaccine. Though, we used to think that, well, we didn’t think, we know there’s a strong association between red meat eating and heart disease, arthritis, memory loss, dementia, and cancer. Very strong.
Now, I’m the first to say association does not mean causation. But here’s the exciting new news in the book. We now know the mechanism of causation. Neu5Gc, because it’s so similar to Neu5Ac, can be incorporated into the lining of our gut, the lining of our blood vessels, the lining of our blood-brain barrier, and the lining of our joints replacing Neu5Ac. So now we have an antigenic compound that our immune system hates lining these structures and our immune system attacks it, causing inflammation in our blood vessels, inflammation in our brain, inflammation in our joints. And Neu5Gc is used by cancer cells to produce local inflammation that they actually thrive in. So it’s no longer a case of association. It’s now a proven causation, and the mechanism is startling.
Now, here’s the good news. There’s a workaround, but you’re going to have to read the book to find it. Until then, be warned, Neu5Gc is the bad actor. I’ve always said it was. And I got no dog in this fight. I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, the beef state. But you’re going to be amazed at what Neu5Gc does and the workaround that’s in the book. One of the revelations that I’ve found over the last 10 years when we started doing tests for leaky gut. And yes, leaky gut is a real thing. It’s not pseudoscience. It is intestinal permeability. We can test for it. There are blood tests that document it.
The shocking thing is that a hundred percent of the people who come to my clinic for whatever ailment they have, and 80% of them have autoimmune diseases now, these people, a hundred percent of them, have leaky gut, number one. A hundred percent of everyone who has leaky gut has antibodies to the various components of wheat, wheat germ agglutinin, gluten, non-gluten proteins, a hundred percent across the board. Even people who have not eaten gluten, who have been gluten-free for 10 years, have active antibodies against the components of wheat, rye, barley, and oats, a hundred percent. Now, here’s the good news. By following the Gut Check Program, within six months to a year, depending on how rigorous people are, the leaky gut is sealed by blood tests. The autoimmune disease, 94% of people in my published data resolve their blood markers of autoimmune disease, go into remission.
And number three, all those antibodies, vigorous antibodies to the various components of wheat, disappear. The immune system is retrained to stand down, to forget how much wheat bothers it. And that is the really exciting news of the Gut Check Program. And the great news is, it’s all in the new book, and I couldn’t be more excited for you to read this book and benefit from it. It’s my best work yet, and it’s out January 9th, 2024. Look for it wherever you get your books. You can pre-order it now at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, wherever you get your books.
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