Exercising Your Gut Microbiome with Darryl Edwards

'When I found myself teetering on the edge of prediabetes, I knew I needed to make a change. I chose movement, and it changed my life.' - On our latest episode, we discuss this journey with Darryl Edwards, a movement coach and author, who made this transformation. From a fascinating conversation about the Primal Play Method to an enlightening discussion on the transformative power of exercise on the gut microbiome, this episode is full of insights and inspiration.

We also delve into fascinating research on the effects of exercise on our gut health. Darryl and I explore interesting animal studies that show how physical activity can boost the presence of beneficial bacteria and reduce the number of harmful ones. We discuss how diet and other factors associated with athleticism can enhance these benefits. We also touch on the importance of nutrition for athletes, especially in relation to energy expenditure, mitochondrial function, and the production of short-chain fatty acids.

Finally, we explore the implications of modern sedentary lifestyles on our health and gut microbiomes. From the evolution of furniture to the advancement of technology, we discuss how our environments encourage inactivity. But it's never too late to make a change. Whether it's introducing exercise early in life, opting for outdoor activities like gardening, or just learning to move more, every step towards a more active lifestyle can have profound impacts on our health and gut microbiomes. So, join us on this journey of discovery and learn how to reclaim the joy of movement!

https://www.primalplay.com/blog/unlock-the-power-of-play-how-active-play-boosts-adult-health-happiness

This podcast is brought to you in collaboration with the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine.

Disclaimer:
The content in this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast.

Transcript

0:00:06 -  Siobhan
Hello and welcome to the Microbiome Medics Podcast. I'm Dr Siobhan McCormack and I'm Dr Sheena Fraser and we're your co-hosts. We are both GPs and Lifestyle Medics with a shared passion for microbiome science, and we have spent the last five years deep diving into the world of the gut microbiome. 

0:00:25 - Sheena
We've been analysing the evidence, appraising the studies, speaking to the experts and writing the gut microbiome for clinicians. E-learning course for the BSLM Learning Academy. 

0:00:35 -  Siobhan
We have discovered that the guts and other human microbiomes are pivotal to every aspect of your health and physiology, and the pillars of lifestyle medicine hold the key. 

0:00:45 - Sheena
So in these Microbiome Medics podcasts we'll be covering the basics, bringing you the latest research and talking to the experts on all matters. Microbiome. 

0:00:54 -  Siobhan
We'll be translating the evidence and packaging it into actionable bite-sized chunks so that you could harness the power of the microbiome to improve your own health and that of your patients. 

0:01:13 - Sheena
Hello, I'm Dr Sheena Fraser and today I'm joined with Darryl Edwards to talk about the relationship between exercise and the gut microbiome. So Darryl Edwards is a former investment banking technologist and he's turned into a movement coach and author. He's the founder of Primal Play Method and a physical activity, health and play researcher. So after almost two decades of working as a technologist and investment banking, darryl transformed his health after adopting a back-to-basics approach to wellbeing as a health and movement coach, darryl now advises people on maintaining a healthy lifestyle amidst the pandemic of chronic lifestyle disease. In September 2023, he became a fellow of the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine and I was there watching him and it was fab and he regularly presents as a keynote and motivational speaker at academic, clinical, health promotion and corporate events worldwide. Darryl's talk in April 2019, his TED talk why Working Out Isn't Working Out discusses the issues with physical inactivity and why most humans hate to exercise, and it's now being viewed over a million times. So pretty impressive stuff. Hi, darryl, and welcome to the Microbiomedics podcast. 

0:02:34 - Darryl
Oh, thanks very much, Sheena. Fantastic introduction, by the way. 

0:02:38 - Sheena
Well, that's your introduction, but it is a fantastic introduction and it's really only a small snippet into the world of Darryl Edwards. Really, you do an awful lot more than that. So I just want to talk to you because I've actually followed you for quite a while now, so since about 2018, I think I first met you back then at my first ever BSLM conference and I attended it with my sister. It was a really good, fun day. It was in Edinburgh. Do you remember that conference in Edinburgh? 

0:03:12 - Darryl
I do yes. 

0:03:13 - Sheena
Yeah, it was really nice. It was just a one day conference and I was just blown away because I'd never been to a BSLM conference before and I was quite taken aback at how different the BSLM conferences were to other medical conferences. The atmosphere was so lively, the food was amazing. We had so much fruits and nuts and salads and all this incredible food all throughout the day and everybody was so energized. But one of the biggest highlights for me was actually you. 

It was amazing because what you did throughout the day was you did sort of exercise bites throughout that whole conference. They weren't normal exercise bites, not the sort that I'd come into contact with before. Instead, we were doing all these crazy things like crawling around the room and fighting each other, which was hilarious, going there with my sister, because obviously we're all very grown up now and we haven't fought each other for a long time. That was really entertaining. I have to say the whole conference was in hysterics and really, really enjoying it. We just felt like kids. Again. I want to just ask you how did you get into all of this? What made you start to go down this route of being this crazy primal play exercise guru? 

0:04:42 - Darryl
Yes, I suppose it started with my childhood, which revolved around active play. I was a kid of the 70s where you were told by your parents to get outside and only come back when there was time for tea, something to eat or when the sun went down. That enthusiasm and love and joy of movement I lost, sort of late teens. Going to university, going into the corporate world, having a very sedentary career, I had a bit of a love hate relationship of exercise. I knew that exercise was good for me. I believed exercise could improve the way that I looked, how I felt. But I couldn't sustain an exercise program. I bought the magazines. It didn't really help for the long haul. 

The real eye opener was in my mid-30s, having an annual health check. My doctor said to me you need medication. You're dealing with prediabetes. You're one sort of health marker away from full-blown type 2 diabetes. My A1C was elevated. My fasting glucose was elevated. I was told I had stage 2 hypertension, which I put down just to having a stressful job. I tried to ignore it. You need some beta blockers. You need some metformin for your blood sugars. You've got a really poor lipid profile, cholesterol profile, so elevated triglycerides. I was like I don't understand any of this. What do I need to do? The doctor said metformin, some beta blockers, and you need something to manage your cholesterol statins. I was like, wow, at my age, are you sure about this? My doctor said it's probably genetic. You've just done lucky. 

I had a bit of reprieve when I said hey, I am very sedentary, I'm not eating. Well, could I try exercise? I read somewhere it can help with blood pressure. My doctor was like sure, but you're going to be back for the meds. I went to an exercise program and I pretty much booked in my work diary a daily bout of exercise at the gym. Nothing would stand in the way. The health benefits were incredible. 

My next blood check, bloods were taken and my blood pressure was taken. My blood pressure had come down from stage two to normal blood pressure. My blood sugars were coming down, so it went from close to type two to just above the normal range of the pre-diabetes. My lipid profile was improving. My doctor said, hey, are you getting meds elsewhere? What's happening? I said I've started exercising, I'm starting to look after myself. I went if I need to take the meds I'm happy to do so, but things are looking pretty good For that next year I had a quarterly checkup. 

Bloods were taken and things started to normalize in a very short space of time. Within three months everything seemed to be back to AOK, back to normal. My doctor said you don't need the meds right now. He said I need to find out if what you're doing with exercise are you an anomaly? Are you just a high responder to exercise, or is this something that I'm likely to see in the research, in the literature? I was like what do you mean literature? I didn't understand what he was talking about. He said well, I'm going to have a look at the research and I'm going to see if I can discover why you're seeing this benefit. I said well, can you forward me the research? He said he wanted to do a case study with some of his other patients. I was like this sounds really fascinating. 

That sparked my interest in the health benefits of exercise and the underlying mechanisms at play. I decided to learn more. I became a personal trainer. I did lots of other studies in relation to exercise and exercise science. I realized my passion was moving away from investment, banking and technology and making lots of money into following my passion and wanting to help people. Exercise became medicine for me. That was the message that I wanted to communicate. 

I had a few stumbling blocks along the way because after I probably was at the peak of my fitness, I started to procrastinate around spending time in the gym. I was like I'll go next week. I don't really want to be doing this. I was cock watching often and I was questioning why I was no longer enjoying exercise. After being really evangelical about it, sharing how amazing it was, I just didn't enjoy the process any longer. That's when I decided to question why I was exercising, why I wasn't receiving any joy from it and why, if something that's so beneficial to one's health, you do not want to continue to do it. Why did I prefer being sedentary to exercising? 

I thought the last time I felt great about movement was clubbing and dancing all night. Then, when I was a kid, playing, I was like how can I recapture that joy of movement that I had as a kid? I don't want to be going clubbing all the time to enjoy myself, enjoy movement. But let's see if I can recreate some of those activities I played as a kid, but in more of an adult form, not patronizing myself, not dumbing down my requirement for movement but actually almost kind of supersizing my love and joy of movement. That's how the Primal Play Method came about, that sort of genesis of the idea. 

Then I realized that I wanted to have an evidence base behind what I was doing. I wanted to focus on what I call my three pillars of the Primal Play Method, on sort of Primal Evolutionary Biology, the environment that humans evolved in, the conditions that we evolved in, that gave us these movement capabilities, this vast way of movement options, and the conditions that we evolved in in order to be capable physically. Then I wanted to utilize exercise science and exercise physiology, because that tells us now, with modern science, what the benefits are to our physiology. We understand the impact to our mental health, to our physical health, to our emotional health through physical activity. Finally, I wanted to use place psychology, because that for me, was what I felt was an antidote to sedentary behavior. 

Many people like myself can't latch on to a lifelong love affair of exercise. There's brief dalliances but nothing sustainable for many. For me, the solution was active play. I developed this Primal Play Method and tested, kind of road tested by meeting as many people as possible, by sharing the good news of Primal Movement, a playful movement and fortunately, there was enough of an audience for me to decide this is what I wanted to do for a living. I ditched my previous vocation and recognized that this was truly my passion, and this is what I want to do. 

0:13:53 - Sheena
Yeah, and do you know, after that last conference dancing at that conference dinner, do you know? I looked at my, I looked at my watch the next day and I had done 10K after midnight. Now we only danced for about 45 minutes after midnight and the same before, and I was like my god, 10k I was, you know, the equivalent of 10K clubbing. That's incredible. 

And when I came back to, you know, my student days when I just used to go clubbing three times a week and I wasn't doing much organized exercise. I was, like you, that was my exercise and I absolutely loved it. But since I've stopped clubbing, you know, I did not realize just how much I was doing in those night clubs. So I'm with you on that one. And then I wanted to say what can you explain to the listeners just the difference between primal play and sort of your traditional exercises and things? What is it you? 

0:14:57 - Darryl
do yeah, so I help people recapture the joy of movement, you know, help them to embrace their inner child. So it's about the experience and joy of movement which many of us are lacking. You know, that experience of going oh my goodness, this is just just feels absolutely incredible. I just want to do this forever. So that feeling that I had as a kid, playing, you know, a game of tag, you know playing a chasing game or climbing trees or whatever it was in that moment where you felt I just hope my parents don't tell me to get inside. You know, I hope the sun doesn't come down, even though I know it will, but let's hope it's gonna. There's gonna be a pause button on that happening, right. That feeling of like you know your friends coming around knocking your door saying, hey, are we going out to play today? You know, course we are. What else we're gonna do? Right? So that feeling, I wanted to model that feeling For not only kids but for adults to, and so play, playful movement, is really the main emphasis of the work that I that I do. 

So it's, it's, it's adding, you know, using the exercises, medicine. Movement is medicine as the foundation, but it's layering on top of this play. So play basically enhances many of the benefits you get from physical activity. So you know, the feel good hormones, for example, like serotonin and endorphins, dopamine I mean all of those newer transmitters are enhanced through play. So they're all activated through physical activity. But when you add the play state, you actually increase levels of serotonin. You get better, more responsive dopamine hits, you know, because you're chasing that risk reward, if you're, if you're playing with a group, then you're more likely to increase the levels of endorphins. You're gonna be having high levels of oxytocin. So there's a social bonding that occurs. You're more likely to be empathetic and sympathetic and you're more likely to have compassion For your peers. So there are all of these additional benefits that come about through active play. 

So I was like great, I'm not only being physically active but I'm enjoying myself far more. I'm. It's now sustainable for me because I'm chasing joyful experiences but I'm also honoring the underlying benefits of physical activity and exercise right. So I know, you know, that one of the functions of of longevity might be to improve my VO to max, the ability for me to process oxygen. So cardiovascular exercise can do that me. Playing a game of tag Can do exactly the same, but I'm more likely to be enjoying that process, right? We know resistance training has a significant benefit to our physiology can help to better regulate our blood sugars, for example. You can help to reduce blood pressure. So we can either find, you know, many of us have to be very goal but objective based when it comes to exercise, whereas if you follow a play state, then you're chasing the feeling in the moment. So I can have these brief Movements next that make me feel great. That may last 30 seconds, may last 20 minutes, but it's not about the duration, it's about how good does this make me feel? Right? How much am I learning about the process of movement? How much am I learning about what I can, what I can't do? How can I challenge myself in the moment? How can I share this experience? So, so, yeah, so play For me, active play is, I believe, is the antidote to sedentary behavior. 

It's one solution to getting people to think differently about movement, to not have to be concerned about the right gear. You know I'm doing the right thing. You know I'm in the right environment. You can play anywhere like you can. You can use and utilize anything as your playground equipment, so to speak. Wherever you are can be your gym, can be your playground. So have that shift in mindset Increases the amount of movement minutes I can get in my day. I can gamify in an analog way, right, without using technology, I can create games, as I did as a kid, to make moments more interesting, right, more challenging, more competitive, more collaborative, whatever. Whatever the aim is. So, yes, that's, that's what I would say. 

The difference is a long-winded answer, but, but I really wanted to emphasize this the focal point of play, and play in, in, in the probably the most Adult Our forms, because, because we shouldn't be regressing to our childhood State, we should actually be progressing like as we're, we're adults. 

And the way I like to, kind of Anna, you know, an analogy of this is if I was a, a cub, you know, like a lion cub, right, a lion cub is only thinking I can't wait to be a lion because, or lioness, because then I'm going to be the most powerful, explosive, dynamic, graceful, you know, demonstration of myself as a, as a lion, right, where is human sometimes? We, we are back often and go all. I remember when I had all these energy and I was a kid and I could move and I was so mobile and flexible and, you know, energy would. I could just go on move for days and actually we, we should be looking forward and hopefully harnessing Our capabilities and our potential as adults and embracing whatever the limitations may be. But I feel there's more. Based on our experiences. There's probably more that we can achieve for a play state as an adult, then as a child. 

0:21:57 - Sheena
Amazing. So one of the other reasons obviously I've invited you on to this podcast is because obviously she and I are obsessed with my problems and you told me at the conference that you were also obsessed with the microbiomes and and how they relate to exercise. So tell me, you've done a lot of research into this and how does your gut microbiome respond to exercise? 

0:22:26 - Darryl
Yeah. So it's really fascinating and in terms of my interest my interest as well as, like many individuals looking to gut microbiome is through nutrition as the gateway, and that's often the context that we discuss the gut microbiome improvements in our diet, improving our gut flora, maybe the use of supplementation and so on. You know, maybe certain foods we should be avoiding, but I was like, well, what else can we do to improve our gut microbiome? And so two of the things that I was fascinated with were soil based organisms, you know. So kids that you know play outside and get. You know, get dirty, play in the mud. They tend to have greater microbiol diversity because they're exposing themselves to many more organisms, right. And the second was for exercise. So I had no idea exercise would have any impact on the microbiome and initially, when I looked at this and I saw studies looking at individuals that had greater diversity and greater volume of health promoting bacteria in the gut of those who were fit, most of the studies suggested it was just to do with improvements in their diet. So you know, if I'm an athlete, I'm like to, you know, have high levels of protein, for example, and and I have improvements in my diet because I want to fuel my activity, I want to help myself repair and recover. So that's usually one explanation given, touted. But the great thing is now we have research which is independent of diet. So we have, we have controls where we we control for for diet and for supplementation and for other behaviors that can impact the gut microbiome, and we can isolate the impact of exercise alone. 

So in the earliest days of the research, most of the studies were animal studies, kind of controlled animal studies, and what the research suggests is that there can be improvements in microbiome diversity. There's increases in the levels of butyrate, so that's a short chain fatty acid which is beneficial for gut flora. There's certainly increases in the beneficial microbiome such as, you know, lactobacillus and bifurbacterium. So so these like health promoting bacterias, there are higher concentrations just through physical activity and there are other kind of butyrate producers as well that are also health promoting. But it also has a decrease in pathogenic microbiome microbes as well. So you know, streptococcus is one that I can think of. But but that's what the animal studies tell us and that's pretty consistent across many of the animal studies. But the downside is, you know, there's different animals used, there were different diets used, there were different exercise modalities used, so it's very difficult to and also to see does that transfer translate to humans? 

So then the next shift was in sort of you know, studies involving humans, kind of cross sectional studies taking a snapshot, and most of those initially looked at athletes and what they've found is that athletes have again increased microbiome diversity, increased levels of this kind of beneficial microbiome, health promoting bacteria. They have less likely to have issues with intestinal permeability, for example, so issues with the gut, less likely to have issues such as IBD, ibs, so less likely to have issues with the gut and issues in the GI tract. So this is quite interesting because it suggests that physical activity plays a role. But again, those studies are looking at athletes who probably have many of the healthy behaviors associated with their activity. 

One study I saw that really switched me on and switched on my interest involved rugby players. So the first study I saw had rugby players versus sedentary individuals. The reason I interested me is because rugby players of course don't just do cardiovascular activity, just don't just do aerobic activity and most of these studies look just at aerobic activity. So this one, this looks at rugby players. So they do a mixture of kind of power, strength as well as cardiovascular activities and they found that when you compare rugby players with sedentary individuals they have all of these benefits discussed with an improved microbiome. Right Again, the argument is they eat better, they have better diets. 

0:28:13 - Sheena
So the studies took a step. They're quite alcoholic rugby players, are they not? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I suppose you're right there. 

0:28:22 - Darryl
But I suppose if you're looking purely at the performance aspects of their athletic ability and the food intake, so if you're isolating for those, even though they're drinking alcohol, they still have a much better health state in the main than sedentary individuals. So I suppose that's what they're kind of identifying, not saying that the rugby players are always going to be depicting me of good health. 

0:28:55 - Sheena
I don't think of my father as in his student days and his stories of playing rugby, you know, and their drinking in those days was pretty heavy Pretty heavy, yeah, I mean. 

0:29:08 - Darryl
I think, it's the same as professional footballers, you know, a generation or two ago, right, where they didn't eat well, drinking a lot, but they just had to perform on the day. Well, it's now. They were going to be depending on your level of rugby playing. You're going to be having nutritionists, you're going to be having chefs, you're going to have diet, you know, very structured and all about you performing. So I think, for sure, there are probably differences in the profile of modern rugby players than even a generation ago. 

0:29:50 - Sheena
Yeah, it's an interesting point you make about the importance of nutrition alongside these athletes, because actually I found that with my daughter. She's triathlete and she performs with Triathlon Scotland, so she's in the Triathlon Scotland squad and she goes away on these weekends, these training weekends, or to big races, and what do they feed her? They feed her junk food. 

0:30:17 - Darryl
Yes. 

0:30:20 - Sheena
You know, why do big organisations like this have this idea that when they're dealing with kids, they've got to feed them burgers and the fish and? 

chips all the worst kind of foods, because, you know, I've looked a little bit into this myself and interestingly, there is a big difference in performance as well, depending on how you feed yourself. 

And again, you know, if you increase the amount of short chain fatty acids, you know you have a more high fibre diet as an athlete, then you have a more protected gut and that actually leads to, you know, not only better performance, because your short chain fatty acids really have receptors all over the body and have far reaching effects across the body in terms of energy expenditure and mitochondrial function. And you know the immune system function and all sorts of things and how you utilise your sugars and your carbohydrates and things. But interestingly, you know there's a whole host of other. You know things that they can do, they can really enhance your metabolism, and so you know it is a bit crazy that even in this day and age, there's still a lot of people not fueling their athletes correctly, and I think that you know the gut might find it really really important to consider in this what would you say is the best sort of fuel for an athlete. 

0:31:51 - Darryl
Yeah. So I'll just quickly go back to that study, the rugby players because to kind of eliminate the role of diet in the microbiome, they took these rugby players and they controlled for diet. So they gave them all a consistent diet and then they basically split the rugby players and increased the level of physical activity in half of the rugby players and what they found in a very short space of time was that there was an increase in microbiode diversity, increases in butyrate, their improvements in the abundance of beneficial health-promoting bacteria, and they attributed this different in improvements in their VO2 max. So VO2 max is one mark that is used in exercise science. It's used to track your ability to process oxygen as fuel. So it's really important, especially in aerobic activities. 

And so this was the first study that basically said well, hey, if we control diet and look at exercise independently, as an independent intervention, we can see changes in the gut microbiome that are only attributed to physical activity. So I think that's a fascinating observation, because that then kind of springboarded into other studies which we can discuss later Again, to kind of teasing out physical activity alone and its benefit on the microbiome, independent of diet. In terms of your question which I think was about actually, could you repeat the question? Yeah? 

0:33:52 - Sheena
I was just wondering. I mean so exercise alone increases the diversity of the beneficial microbes in the gut and increases the butyrate production, which is this amazing short chain fatty acid. So, even if you've got a terrible diet or whatever your diet is you're going to get those big improvements in your gut microbiome just with exercise? 

0:34:17 - Darryl
alone, just exercise alone. 

0:34:18 - Sheena
That's really, really interesting. And then, in addition, because all these things sort of sit side by side nutrition and exercise they're tied in together. So then you have to consider what would be the optimum diet to enhance that further or to not get rid of those beneficial impacts, because we know that certain foods are going to damage the microbiome. So what would you say as a coach and as somebody who deals with people who are doing all sorts of different exercises every day? What kind of things do you recommend to help their gut microbiome? 

0:35:05 - Darryl
Yeah, so that's a really good question. So again I'm going to be, because my bias swings towards movement. Interestingly, in those studies, short-term interventions of increasing physical activity, those individuals who went back to sedentary behavior or less active behavior they reversed all of those changes. So they had this kind of washout period to certainly look at physical activity in isolation and they found that when people became more sedentary they reverse these changes in microbiome diversity. They would lower their levels of butyrate, they would increase their levels of pathogenic bacteria, for example. So I really wanted to kind of emphasize this point around physical activity In terms of nutrition, with things like butyrate, short-chain fatty acid. 

So fermentation of fiber is certainly one way of achieving increases in butyrate. You will have those who follow a low-carb diet who will also point to research saying that low-carb diets can also increase levels of butyrate as well. From an athletic point of view, many of the studies in athletes are isolating protein as a macro nutrient of importance for improvements in the microbiome as well. So for an athlete, protein is extremely important because it improves your ability to recover from intense exercise. So one of the things that's certainly missing from this discussion is what happens when you exercise acutely and when that acute exercise becomes extended and you kind of do too much of a good thing. So what's interesting when you study you? Actually, because you're diverting blood and oxygen away from the gut and because you're increasing core temperature and you have less oxygen available in the gut, you can actually increase the likelihood of gut permeability during exercise. 

So there's a lot of stress that occurs through physical activity and this stressor, when it's happening acutely, actually leads to improvements in healing of the gut, in more motility in the gut. So actually that's one of the reasons why exercise as an intervention is seen to reduce the risk of certain cancers of the gut colon cancer, stomach cancer, for example. There's a reduction in risk because of this increase in physical activity. But when this acute stressor of exercise becomes, I just want to do more, more, more probably not eating enough, not recovering, not having enough restoration, you can actually have harmful impact from exercise so you can increase the likelihood of gut permeability and it be irreversible. 

So there's certainly issues with having carbohydrate gels and sports drinks and taking NSAIDs to help with muscle soreness. 

Because if you're doing chronic cardio, as I call it, lots and lots of cardio hard in resistance training because you just want to do more volume, you're doing lots and lots of steady state and you're in this process of increased gut permeability and then you're taking NSAIDs and you're taking high carbohydrate gels, ultra processed, you're likely to cause havoc in the GI tract. 

So, from an improvement in nutrition, you'd probably want to veer away from some of those foods, focus on a real food diet, certainly make sure you have adequate protein and for your fat consumption. Then you want to be focusing on the healthier fats, so anti-inflammatory fats, omega-3s as an example. So that would be probably my generic suggestion A discussion around the importance of food from a physical activity point of view, fueling the activity, making sure there isn't too much stress, gi stress while superfoiling the activity. So being very careful about what you're consuming on those lengthier runs and probably for some of my clients, I would be getting them to reduce the volume, actually having a greater variety of activities that they're in the take. So not necessarily saying cut back on your exercise, but saying maybe you can spend those hours more intelligently, more wisely. 

0:40:34 - Sheena
Absolutely. I totally agree. I think that when it comes to this real endurance sports, you can push it too far and naturally you can end up with I mean, gut issues are not uncommon in these endurance athletes that are doing really long, long endurance races and things, and that's actually one of the main reasons why people drop out of these races as well, as often they're guts that cause them all the problems, but these sort of athletes are not so common in our society as you and I know, so probably what's more of interest to people is really the average person and how the average person can benefit. What I want to talk about next is what's the difference between exercising inside for example, gym work and stuff like this and exercising outside in terms of your gut microbiome? 

0:41:35 - Darryl
Yes, so that's a really good question. So we know that green exercise, so exercise in nature, exercise outdoors, you know, can be in the city just having access to green space. 

It doesn't have to be in the country right, it doesn't have to be in the hills. So just being outside compounds the benefits of physical activity. So performing the same activity outdoors if you're running on a treadmill versus running outside, there were so many differences in the environments leading to health benefits, everything from what you wouldn't expect. So the uneven terrain, for example, is beneficial. The wind resistance that occurs when you're outdoors is beneficial. The temperature difference and temperature regulation is beneficial. You know the kind of hormesis, hormetic effect that occurs of trying to adapt. All of those differences have a significant benefit to our health. 

But also being outside, you know, access to vitamin D from the sun, you know, during March to October, obviously beneficial. The reduction in blood pressure, you know. So you reduce hypertension. Just being outside, that's also beneficial. There are improvements in immunoregulation, so your immune system is better able to do its job just by being outside. So there are just a number of benefits. Looking at green exercise, which is actually a term used to describe the research on exercise outdoors versus indoors, so there are many, many benefits of doing so and that translates to the gut microbiome, right? 

So the more natural an environment in many respects, the more aligned it is to our physiology, we are obviously going to be getting benefits. You know there's a bio-bio-ophilia effect. I think it's EO Wilson calling the term bio-ophilia. Humans innate love for nature and so, yeah, there's lots of research on what happens when you look at a tree, you know, and how that can impact your physiology and how it can have an impact on your gut microbiome. Because stress has another negative impact on the gut microbiome. 

So being outdoors can reduce levels of stress, reduce circulating levels of cortisol. So, yeah, part of the primal play method is I'm a huge advocate to doing many of these activities outdoors. So it's our natural environment for much of this type of movement. So, yeah, but I think the real, you know, for most people they are sedentary. You know most of us are sedentary. You know 90 plus percent of adults in the UK do not meet the physical activity guidelines when they are wearing accelerometers. So when we self-report it's about a third of adults that meet the guidelines. But we're not meeting the guidelines for resistance training, for sure, strength training, and many of us are just not meeting the guidelines for, you know, avoiding sedentary behavior. 

So most of us would benefit from moving more than we do now, moving more often than we do now, increasing the intensity of our activity, not necessarily doing more for longer, but doing more intensely for shorter periods, a very beneficial when it comes to the gut microbiome because you're reducing this window of opportunity for increased gut permeability, right, so you have less of this hypoxia that occurs in the gut when you're exercising. You have less time where you know your blood flow is being diverted away from the gut because you're being active for longer. So those aspects of movement are really important to consider because we often, you know, kind of overplay some of the harmful impacts of physical activity. You know, for example, it will increase in the short term. 

A pro-inflammatory effect occurs when you exercise. So if you take markers like C-reactive protein immediately after intense exercise, it will be elevated. And there are many other markers of inflammation in research settings that detect increases in these levels of inflammatory markers, pro-inflammatory cytokines, for example. However, when you have consistent acute physical activity chronically, those markers actually reduce. So those who chronically exercise and when I say chronically exercise I mean regular bouts of exercise rather than really long bouts actually reduce. Pro-inflammatory cytokines have an anti-inflammatory, systemic, anti-inflammatory benefit from physical activity. There's a lowering of these more health markers, a lowering of these anti-pro-inflammatory markers that can be checked. 

So the main benefit of physical activity really comes from this intense shock to the system, this adaptation that occurs post-activity and then the repair and recovery mechanism which promotes healing. So that sort of cycle that occurs needs to be just that, it needs to be a cycle and it needs to be equal weighting to the work phase, the kind of repair and restoration phase, and the recovery, healing and promotion, health promotion phase. 

0:48:10 - Sheena
Yeah, so you get this acute inflammatory and response in the gut, which then seems to sort of stimulate the body's immune system to downplay inflammation elsewhere. Which is really, really interesting, isn't it that you're creating a bit of inflammation in order to knock inflammation down further, Whereas when you're sedentary, I read that you only have to be sedentary for about 45 minutes before your inflammatory markers go up. I don't know. 

0:48:42 - Darryl
Yes, yeah, yeah, I mean it's very, it's a very unhealthy state to be in, unfortunately, because you, you, you are pretty much starting to atrophy in a very short space of time. So so you know, you're, you're. Our bodies are very efficient at deciding what is useful to, to, to, um, as part of our metabolism, right, so muscle tissue is very expensive to maintain Right and, apart from the brain, it's a significant draw on our metabolism. So, very quickly, our bodies can go. 

Hey, you know what? I just don't need as much muscle. You know, it's better for me to get rid of some of this. And so this process of atrophy. Atrophy occurs in very short space of time. 

Um, you know the, the cytokines that I that occur from muscle contraction. So we have lots of anti-inflammatory cytokines to called myokines for muscle tissue. So muscle contraction, these kind of almost like endocrine transmitters that come from muscle tissue, called myokines. They, you know, up regulate anti-inflammatory signaling in the body and they down regulate pro-inflammatory responses in the body. And that could, that could be a topic in and of itself, yeah, but you know, you know, interleukin six is one, interleukin 10 is a pro-inflammatory, um, but those are, those are down regulated uh, in response to these cytokines that come from from muscle. And there are even cytokines that come from bone, so weight bearing activity, which is one of the reasons why, um, strength training has a significant anti-inflammatory benefit in the short term? Certainly not, you know, the acute phase response is muscle soreness. So that's an example of of uh you know, an elevated pro-inflammatory state. 

right, that pain, discomfort, but again, you know, you do it, you repeat those behaviors, your body adapts, it gets stronger, you know so, so, um, and then those, those, um. Then there's a down regulation of these pro-inflammatory cytokines. So so, yeah, that's another area of interest of mine, this uh muscle being identified as the the largest endocrine organ. 

Yeah, and it's ability to have cross talk not only to itself as muscle tissue, but cross talk to bone and cross talk to the liver, the kidneys, the heart, um, cross talk to the pancreas. So one of the benefits of of um reductions in, say, type two type, type type two diabetes, insulin resistance, for example, we know that exercise improves insulin sensitivity. But we also now know that exercise has a cytokine called iris in, which is known as the exercise hormone, only discovered in 2012. So not many people aware of this hormone, um, but iris in is activated through muscle contraction, especially aerobic activity, um, and it has a significant impact on blood sugar regulation, um, it has communication from muscle to pancreas. Uh, so there's, there's impact on kind of beta cell function and efficiency. I mean, it's literally. It's a vast subject, um, but there were so many benefits. 

0:52:36 - Sheena
I mean Peter Peter, who's another um, you know, impressive uh medic over in the States who, um, who I don't know. If you listen to his podcast, the Drive Um, he's an impressive chap who does an awful lot of investigation into um, longevity and the reason for longevity, and and he basically has said look, exercise is the most important thing, uh, in terms of improving longevity. 

Um, you know, if you're going to do one thing in this world, then long you know, exercise is in, and and I would say, you know, it's a really good thing to do. I mean, for me, I'm totally obsessed with anything exercise based. But, um, but I feel like you know, if you're not doing these physical activities all the time, then then you're not maintaining the strength in your body, you're not maintaining your balance, you're not maintaining your, your physical, sort of aerobic capacity to be able to do things. 

And of course, you know that's where people become so sluggish and and then, you know, don't have the ability to suddenly, you know, jump up and play with their children or play with their grandchildren or, you know, do these kind of things and I I feel that's really, really sad. 

You know, my, my parents are now in their mid seventies and a couple of weeks ago, um, I went on a hill walk with my parents and um and my family and we went up Loch Nagar, um, which is in Ballater. It's beautiful Big Monroe Mountain and it's 21 kilometers, um, and it's a massive climb. 

And my parents, who are both in the mid seventies, um, did this climb and, what's more, the next day, who was the person that had the sore legs? Me, not them, because you know, they do a ton of hill walking and they're, and they're really fit, and, uh, and I was the one that was suffering because I'm stuck in the city and I'm not doing enough hills. So, you know, I think, I think you know, if we want to maintain our, our fitness and and you know, improve our longevity, I think exercise is really, really important. Um, one other thing I would add about um, about going out into the, the hills, or going out into the parks, and is that the amazing thing is that the, you know, trees and foliage breathe. 

So they have they have microbes all around them and in the soil and so when you actually go out into nature, you inhale all of the the microbes that are in the environment, and you don't get that in a gym. You probably inhale a load of other people's microbes that they're really sick, but you're not really. You're not absorbing and um inhaling all these incredible microorganisms from the natural environment, and I think that's another way that um that exercise can diversify your, your um microbiomes in your body through through just that sort of being in the environment, inhaling and ingesting all these organisms from there. 

0:55:36 - Darryl
Yep, bear crawl, bear crawl on the on the, on the grass in your local park, bear crawl in the earth. So you know, as I mentioned earlier, soil, soil based organisms, um, um, which which doesn't get enough credit for for having an impact on our microbiome. And we know that earlier, and I'm sure you're, you're aware, um she, you know, the earlier we introduce, you know, contact with these microbes, um, the earlier we exercise. So there's really good research actually that the earlier you exercise and maintain a good exercise regimen, the more impact you have on your, on your microbiome. The later, later in life, you have less impact. It's still beneficial, but not as much as if you load that up front. 

So you know, the kids of, yes, the year, who would have had lots more outdoor play, naturally, um, who weren't kind of confined to to to the indoors like many kids of today, um, would have an advantage just just on that basis of having more outdoor outdoor time, um. 

So so, yeah, for sure, um that there's, there's a, there's a significant benefit just thinking about changes of environment. And even, I'm sure I'm not sure if you've seen the studies on um, they started in prison populations actually, Uh, trying to, you know, improve prison behavior, right prisoner behavior, and just having pictures in the cell of nature has an a calming effect on prisoners, has a health promoting effect on prisoners. That you know less violent incidents, less illness. I mean it's just, it's incredible Um and they confirm this with with FMRI scans Um, so just just looking at, just looking at nature, um having, even having fake plants if you can't, you know, if you don't have the green fingers to have, you know, plants indoors, even having fake plants has a beneficial effect. So so you know there are there are many stepping stones to, to, to access these benefits, um through, through having more access to nature, whether it's visual, just visual, visually, uh, through touching, through smelling, as you mentioned. 

Um, for getting getting your hands dirty, you know, got you know again, one of the benefits of gardening, right, is you're getting, you know you're getting your hands dirty most of the time. Right, you're weeding, you're you know you're getting a dirt under your nails. 

Um, so so fortunately, I think there was a yes of, yes, of course, yeah, don't forget the weed, the weed killer, but but, um, you know, I, I think certainly we know exercise has this impact on the microbiome. It has this impact, beneficial impact on, um, the intestinal barrier, um, it can help with gut immunity as well. So it certainly helps with improving immunoregulation and and immunosurveillance. Um, and but um, there are a couple of other things that I definitely want to make sure that that we discuss, and one is kind of going back to the play state again, um, and my advocacy for that. 

So there's a an interesting study looking at it's an animal study, uh, but looking at the impact on the gut microbiome of um voluntary exercise and when exercise is forced. So basically looking at the impact of you doing something that you don't really enjoy but you're doing it because you kind of have to right Versus, I mean just doing this because it's fun and um, and what they, what they found. I'm trying to, I'm trying to remember the, the, the outcome, but they found, you know, when uh, mice were or there were rats actually with voluntary, basically go on a on the wheel, you know in the running wheel, um, that they would have higher levels of of healthier, uh health-promoting bacteria in the gut. Greater um diversity in the gut? Um greater gut barrier integrity. Uh less systemic inflammation. Um remarkable, remarkable study, and that's one that I I hold dear to my heart because, because, certainly, if you're, if you're in this kind of like chronic stress, um, you know, in a stressful state by doing the activity, and then top of that you have this additional kind of psychological stress of like, oh, I don't really want to be doing this, why am I doing this? You know you're clock watching, you can't wait for it to be over Then you're actually negating some of the health benefits of performing that physical activity. It's probably not one we're going to see replicated in humans because of course, you know you can't really force people, uh to exercise, but there are, there are some studies looking at that. 

There's one really interesting one in older adults, uh, where, um, they both perform. 

Two groups perform, go for walk for 30 minutes and, um, the second group are told, um, we're going to have some fun for 30 minutes and the first group are told we're going to exercise for 30 minutes and go for a brisk walk, and what they found was that they're both walking and what they found was the second group who were told um. So the first group were told hey, let's have some fun. Um, that group, the fun group, walked further, walked, uh, you know, faster. Um, at the end of it reported less levels of exertion used during the activity. So they didn't feel as if they did as much as they actually did Um, but they had, you know, improvements in like you know, like it was like um waste circumference measurements were lower, they had better blood sugar control, um, uh, body fat percentage reduction, even though they basically were burning similar sort of calories um doing doing the same activity for the same sort of time. So so some really good studies on on just how your mindset, uh, when exercising, impacts the health benefits. 

1:02:15 - Sheena
Wow, that's amazing. And what about if you have a bit of a abnormal gut microbiome? Say you have like irritable bowel and you're you know you've got a lot of pro-inflammatory organisms in your gut. How does that impact on your ability to exercise? Is there any? Is there any impact the other way around? So you know, if you've got disturbance of your gut microbiome, does that affect your exercise capacity? 

1:02:44 - Darryl
Yeah, I think there are some studies. It's not, it's not an area of expertise of mine, but I know there are. There are some studies. I mean, certainly, you know, those with with obesity have have different gut floor. You know there's a different microbiome, microbiome just just having just dealing with obesity, overweight and obesity. 

And if you exercise so there are studies looking at exercise in in lean and those with obesity the same type of protocol, right, so they give them both 30 minutes, the same intensity, and interestingly, there is less impact, beneficial impact, in those with obesity than those with lean in mass. And the same can occur in those that have a very pro-inflammatory environment, you know may have an also immune condition, for example. So, so, so we know that the dose, the dosing has to change actually with those individuals who are dealing with with some of these conditions that can impact their desire and their ability to to move more. And so, interestingly, the the, the prescription tends to be to do more. Actually because they're, because you're systemically you're less responsive to exercises and intervention, but by doing more you're then increasing their health-promoting benefits. You know that cascade effect, that down-regulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines. You get more of that when you do more. So so certainly, you know, for anyone dealing with IBS, I think I wrote a blog post some time ago actually on on kind of an exercise prescription for IBS and and, interestingly, there's lots of evidence supporting doing lots of exercise. 

You know, high-intensity interval training actually is a really good protocol for people dealing with IBS and there's a reduction in symptoms. You know, it's like it's like just seems like miraculous an impact and certainly something that you wouldn't expect. But but yes, I would, I would certainly suggest, even though you may not feel like doing more, it's worthwhile. It's worthwhile doing more and taking it a little bit more abstract. This is an animal study and this is another one that I found really fascinating. It's in animal studies. Now they can, they can basically produce. It's a bit cruel, I know, but they can produce rats that have no microbiome. They basically kind of like microbiome free and they they produced rats with colitis with no, no gut microbiome, right, and they transferred the microbiome from exercised rats into the rats with ulcerative colitis and the ulcerative colitis was reversed in those, in those rats, just from taking exercised microbiota. 

1:06:19 - Sheena
Yeah, and that's really fascinating when you just take the feces. So you're taking the feces, which contains all the microorganisms from that animal that has just been exercising. So they've then had those beneficial effects from the exercise on their gut microbiota and you're just transferring the microbiota into another animal and, without the animal exercising, they're getting all those benefits because that benefit has been passed on to the gut microbiome, and that's that in itself is is very important evidence for the impact of exercise on the gut microbiota and then the impact of that gut microbiota change on the rest of the body and how it's so particularly anti-inflammatory. So, no, that's really, really interesting. And, yeah, I mean, I think there's no doubt that exercise is massively beneficial. 

I think part of the problem that we have in society, though, is that motivation, and you must hear this all the time. You know, I can certainly think of several patients who would really benefit from more regular exercise, but but actually, it's, it's the motivation, it's the confidence to go and exercise, it's it's how to get them into something, and you know, if they've never exercised before, if they're not even, you know, interested in any forms of exercise, how do we motivate people to get active? 

1:07:42 - Darryl
Yeah, I tell you, if you know, I'd get the Nobel Nobel Prize if I could answer that one. 

But you know, but the honest I do talk a little bit about this in my TED talk, actually I'm why working at isn't working out. Part of the problem is exercise is, you know, we, as humans, we want to conserve energy. You know that's what most animals want to achieve. Is energy conservation just through enough to get my food. You know, eat my food, have a bit of fun, reproduce and go to sleep. Right, you know, like there's, there's a driver to survival, which is I want to be as efficient as possible. And so now we in the 21st century, we have this world where we've outsourced movement to, you know, technology, to labor-saving devices. We've got really comfortable chairs, we've got great entertainment on our phones, we don't really have to move. But we also have this, you know high energy. You know low nutrient density, environment when it comes to food, right. 

Plus, we also have this really stressful environment that many of us live in now, right, you know so. So we have all of these like very negative drivers in our environment and the one, you know, and one thing that could help is to move more, is to exercise a bit more physically active. But everything is telling us why should I do that? I don't have to do it. Do you know what I mean? You know I have to eat, you know, but I don't have to exercise, right? So if you don't exercise, when do you feel the harmful impact of not exercising? There's not as much of an immediacy around it, right? But if you don't eat food, if you don't drink, you know, your body tells you, you know, like, hey, come on, let's eat some food, let's, you know, and then? 

So, then, if you've got choice to these foods which are convenient, that's why many people will tend to go for those convenient foods, right, they alter, processed, quick, you know. 

Easy to buy, easy to cook, if they, you know, or they've already been cooked, already prepared, easy to eat, not very, not much, say, you know, satiety there want some more. So I think this is the problem, that we don't understand, how difficult it is for us to overcome our biology Right. So our biology is doing what it does best when it says, hey, just sit here and wait for food to be delivered. You know to take it, take it easy, right? You know you've had a hard day in the office, you've had a hard day at work, like you know, don't you know hard. You know you've done a bit of housework just so you can chill now, and so there's nothing. It's not about willpower and it's not certainly not about blame. Our environment is very powerful. So if you go back 100, 200 years, 500 years, 1000 years, our environment will be telling us hey, if you don't move, you know you're not going to get food right. 

If you don't, you know, if you're not active you're not going to get to work. If you're not active you're not going to be able to do your job, because most jobs involved quite a lot of physical labor right, even in the last I think I read in the last two generations 70% of jobs were kind of labor into physical labor intensive two generations ago. Now it's something like about 7%. And even those who are, you think, are, you know, doing lots of physical labor, like farmers or builders, they're doing hardly any in comparison to a couple of generations ago because we now have these machines doing most of that work. So even the most active of vocations are, relatively speaking, inactive in comparison to the recent past. So so yeah, I have. I just have lots of sympathy now. I never used to. I used to be like yeah, just get up and move. 

I don't understand why you're not. But now I kind of realize, you know, look at, even furniture changes Like. If you look at, I look at photos of of, like my you know furniture from when I was a kid. There was no comfortable sofas or comfortable armchairs. There was no seats at bus stops. There were hardly any seats in train stations, like you know, there was a. There was a lack of comfort, whereas now you buy a, you know most people buy a chair. Now it's they're like beds, like you know. They just like wrap you in in comfort and embrace you and make you want to stay there for longer, whereas I remember my I remember that the sofa that we had when I was a kid the lever, you know, cold, not very inviting sofa. You wouldn't stay in it for long, you'd be like it's time to get up. But now you're sitting, a sofa you're like, oh my goodness, these cushions are huge. You know you've got shows that are like. You know we've got blankets for our sofa. We need to get. 

Spartan yeah. 

1:13:19 - Sheena
Yeah, only two chairs in the room, so somebody's always going to stand. 

1:13:23 - Darryl
Yeah, yeah, it's, you know I'm, I'm. I think I might do a documentary or something on on the change in the change in furniture. But yeah, certainly I think I coin, I coin it big burner and and, and I think you know, imagine, in, say, 40 years time there's those huge lawsuits, you know, to IKEA or never met. 

1:13:48 - Sheena
You know furniture manufacturers. 

1:13:51 - Darryl
Because you made it so easy. It's really comfortable furniture and I didn't want to move. It's your fault. So, yeah, big fan, look out for my. That's one of my next books. Yeah, the dangers of big fan. 

1:14:06 - Sheena
But more of us are getting standing desks these days. You know, I know lots of people who have standing desks and I have one and I stand most of the morning. And then, you know, when I do sit down at work, I sit on a Pilates ball. I bounce about. 

1:14:20 - Darryl
Nice. 

1:14:21 - Sheena
My patient is like why are you sitting on a ball? Well, my course, never be better. 

1:14:28 - Darryl
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I think there's a, you know there's, there's. It's probably more obvious now because it, because you know, movement deficiency is so commonplace, right, that when we see it, when we see somebody standing at their desk, we're like whoa, that's kind of really radical, that's so different. But again, if you look, if you look historically, like Winston Churchill had a standing desk, thomas Jefferson had a standing desk. Well, I read that. The reason why we have the term, you know, chairman, now chairperson, right, the reason why we have the term chairman, is because when the industrial revolution started and people started working in factories and the like, the main person would have a chair. They were so rare to have chairs and that person would be the chairman, right? So so chairs are relatively a recent introduction to to our sedentary behavior. There weren't very commonplace. Even the early offices didn't have many chairs, believe it or not, so so, so it's a relatively recent introduction, and I think you're right. 

Now many of us are saying, hey, you know what? There is something I can do. I can get a standing desk. I can do some movement breaks at my desk. I can, you know, I can get a Swiss ball and, you know, I can walk away from my desk and you know, as a GP, I can. I can. You know, every time I'm meeting my patient, I'm going to go to the waiting room and get them, and you know, and and be a bit more active, and we've got all of these. You know we raise money for charities and there's. There are so many more things that we can do, but but I think the you have to be disciplined and you have to have a really strong will, I think, to make that decision and and most of us aren't, aren't there. 

We need, we need environmental changes, in my opinion, that make it easier for us to to make those decisions. That's what I feel. It's a bit, it's a little bit like smoking. You know, you go back, you know fairly 40 years and all the education. You know the taxing of cigarettes on the packets. You know all the horrible images. 

There was still very high levels of smoking in this country. It was only when it became unacceptable through the law, saying, hey, you know what? You can't smoke at work anymore. You can't smoke in the hospital, you can't smoke at work. You can't smoke in the schools. You can't smoke even in the restaurants or the pubs. You know when we had those laws being passed and you know, now you see somebody smoking, it's like, oh you know, it's a bit unusual now to see somebody smoking, whereas when I was a kid that it was it was certainly commonplace for many adults, for me to see many adults smoking. So I think you know we need environmental changes that can kind of shift our mindset around. Hey, you know, and that's you know as an organization. 

For example, why don't we get everyone a standing desk, you know, or sit to stand desk, so people can decide, you know, if they want to stand or not? And if more of the culture dictates that more people are keen on standing, it's probably going to encourage that to occur, you know, but anyway, it's a bit of a pipe dream of mine. I've seen huge shifts in an environment to make it easier for us to make the right decision, Because it's not trust me, I like most of the time I just want to sit and play my Xbox all day. I really, I really do, and I love playing, I love moving, but like there's something about my nice, comfortable armchair, my amazing technology and my amazing game controller. I'm like this is like heaven, but I have to. I have to say no, Dal, you know you, you have to move right, you can't just stay here all day. Yeah, I think it's. It's going to take a concerted effort to help people who feel very comfortable being sedentary. 

1:18:47 - Sheena
But it's good to start these conversations and I think what you're doing is amazing and you know, having having seen what you do and the joy you bring to people, because because I think that's the other side of your work that we probably didn't cover enough of is just the sheer joy factor of doing the kind of play that you, you encourage people to do, which, you know, as you say, must really set the end offerings going and, you know, really improve your gut microbiome just in terms of, you know, giving you all those incredible happy hormones. So you know that that's amazing and and I get it and I I get why you're so passionate about what you do. So thank you so much for coming and talking to me today. We've covered loads and I I realize I've kept you longer than I said I would, so apologies. 

1:19:40 -  Siobhan
It's my fault for, for you know, just being so passionate about exercising and get microbiome and solving the world's, the world's ills. 

1:19:49 - Sheena
Well, we'll have to have you back at some stage Talk to us more, but thank you so much and that's us for today. I hope you've enjoyed the conversation with Darryl and and hope you've learned a little bit more about this and and I hope that it's inspired you to go and be more active and, and you know, like Darryl says, you don't have to do these sort of regimented exercises. You know you could just go and have fun somewhere. You know, just go in and you know, turn it into a play, turn it into something fun and enjoyable, and and think back to your childhood and the things that you enjoyed doing then and and try and incorporate more of these type of activities into your daily life. Okay, thanks again. Bye. 

1:20:29 - Darryl
Thanks so much, Cheers everyone. 

1:20:38 -  Siobhan
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Microbiome Medics Podcast. We really hope you enjoy the content and we welcome your feedback. We'd love to hear any suggestions you might have for microbiome topics that you'd like us to cover, and we also appreciate listeners questions and we'll endeavour to answer them in the next podcast. So if you want to, progress this learning further. 

1:20:57 - Sheena
Look at the Gutmicrobiome for clinicians. It's an online course on bslm.org.uk which will take you on a much deeper dive into the Gut microbiome.