Eric Rieger
0:00 All right, it is now time for the gut check project with the COVID file installment number 11. I'm Eric Rieger, with your co host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. Dr. Brown what's happening today?
Ken Brown
0:10 What's going on Eric? I love you sticking to your roots and the hair just keeps getting bigger and bigger this COVID do that. Yeah going on it's starting to starting to really rock right now.
Eric Rieger
0:20 You can you can see roots you can see some gray Kevin but yeah, roots. Whatever it takes.
Ken Brown
0:27 How have you been? What's going on with the family? let's get let's get caught up on that stuff. We're not doing enough personal stuff lately.
Eric Rieger
0:33 Man family. It's funny. You mentioned that. Yeah, considering what we're going to talk about. But this weekend, I get to go and see my oldest he is in his first semester at Texas Tech. He's loving it, but I'm not seeing him in over a month can't wait till this weekend for us to say hello to each other and youngest Mac has got basketball this evening. They're doing tournaments. And of course, both of them are having to do this readjustment obviously around COVID. And Marie, I couldn't be more excited to to obviously go and watch the boys play. And then go watch or go catch up with gage this weekend. And she and I just remain busy. So it's a it's it's the world we live in now. It's prefaced by my COVID. What about yourself?
Ken Brown
1:23 things are going really good with the family. We're trying to figure out how to get back at some of these tennis tournaments, as they put them on, and they cancel them and so on. So talking to mom a lot and trying to be very proactive about speak with mom trying to figure out how I can get my 79 year old, very Spry mom who's feeling better now than she did when she was 69. So and then 59. I think she's feeling better now than she has in 20 years. And so I started thinking about that I started thinking about family and how important that is. And this is what I want to kind of get into today today's I kind of threw you a curveball, I initially said we're going to talk about something and then I started going down these rabbit holes of research. And rather than rabbit holes, I'm gonna call them vole holes, the prairie vole holes. Alright, I'll explain how that ties in. But when we're looking at this, I'm sitting there talking to my mom, and she sounds great. And we're trying to do this. I've got, you know, we did some some zooms with some other friends around the country. And I'm like, wow, this is an interesting time. And I then started thinking about my practice. And I'm like, and my practice is really busy right now, like people are really struggling, and they're very desperate. So I started down this whole path. This is where it began. And this is going to end up being Angie Cooks podcast, because she's going to come on and I'm challenging her to be the expert in this, because I just got done doing Chris Kresser's podcast where he agreed, we need to bring this one thing out in the open. What we're seeing and what I'm seeing with patients is a consistent deal where if people have some sort of gastrointestinal problem, specifically CBOE, I can trace it back. And then you have these people that are showing up with dysautonomia, they've got pots. Ehlers Danlos and which comes first chicken of the egg did something cause that, if those terms don't mean anything to you, good. If they mean something to you, then you know what I'm talking about, because it's this. It's this constellation of symptoms that nobody has put together before, which is gut something happens to your gut, then suddenly, you're diagnosed as having Ehlers Danlos. And then it's postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome called pots. So for all those people that have this, and there's actually way more than we realize, that's what I started with this, I was like, Oh, I'm going to do a, I'm going to do the preface, the the sort of general 30,000 foot view of why we have this and then I started thinking, Wait a minute, why is this why are we seeing more of this now? Why are we having more gastrointestinal issues, which conceivably can lead to chronic long term stuff. And then I had a wake up in the middle of the night moment where I went COVID people are recovering from COVID. But then they're having chronic issues. And it's really all over the map. Now, cardiac issues, pulmonary issues, some some nerve issues, are we going to end up with a whole new wave of almost post Lyme, chronic infection type things that the immune system is turned on? So then that got me thinking, I'm like, Oh my gosh, we got to figure out this whole motility deal. And during this really busy time, I've got all these people and then I got a article was sent to me by the Journal of American Medical Association, this month, September 2020, that signs of depression have tripled in the US since COVID 19 pandemic So 28% of the people surveyed had at least one symptom of depression, you compare that to 8.5% pre pandemic. So it's not just the number, but the severity of depression is increasing tremendously also. And there's actually a significant number of people that have been diagnosed with serious depression. When you fall into that category, you start really worrying about suicide, you start really worrying about breakthrough of other problems. And it usually requires a ton of treatment and different things to try and get this under wraps. So there's very little research going on right now discussing this. So we've got this COVID problem, even if you don't get COVID. So if you get COVID, it's possible, you have to worry about a long term consequence. We know it can infect the gut. And then even if you don't, we're seeing the next wave of impending pandemic of depression that we're going to have to deal with. So
Eric Rieger
6:00 No joke. I was just going to add that the I guess the the syndromes that you're describing Ehlers Danlos, and POTs, etc. It is reminiscent to the time when you were addressing IBS and bloating, okay, because those were somewhat seen as throwaway trashcan diagnoses. And that's really kind of stealing a lot from you. That's what people felt they're like, well, I don't know, it's IBS, I don't know. It almost feels like it, we're we're now sustaining a wave of POTs and Ehlers. And we're seeing these people come through and they don't really know who they can turn to. And little bit by little bit, it seems like maybe we're making a little bit of headway. So drawing this connection really pulls me in, and others who may actually have happened to suffer from this, or who have witnessed family members suffer from this kind of stuff, because there has to be a way out. And there's usually a cause and just kicking it under the rug and pretending like it's not there is not really going to work. And if we know that COVID is setting us up to experience syndromes similar to this, then more than likely, we can walk backwards and figure out what was it that COVID did to put these things in motion? And what can we do about it? If we become infected to hopefully either curve it or not experience it all together?
Ken Brown
7:23 Well, I think one of the biggest things is that if you are in a situation, you cannot have a healthy immune system without a healthy gut. So what I'm saying is that we do have evidence now that when you have a something that affects your gastrointestinal system system, like an h2 receptor, where spike protein can bind to it, and then that's where the, the whole disease starts, that could lead to a domino effect of more chronic problems. And so I'm sitting, I'm just like, wow, okay, this is daunting, my practice is full, we're getting all these people showing up with these, I don't, I can't give them a good answer. On the whole, you had got problems. Now you've got these other long term issues you have to deal with, and this JAMA article comes out. And so this is where I start going down some balls, like man, I really want to be able to help, like, what is this connection, it says there. And then I started looking down this and I was like, wait a minute, let's look at this. Depression essentially is a form of reaction to some sort of stress. Stress, we know causes a sympathetic response in the body, right? We understand that a fight or flight response is the sympathetic response that affects intestinal motility. And we know through all of our other podcasts that we've done, and and other people and guests that there's a tremendous brain gut access. So as your co-host of the gut check project, co COVID, files number 11. I'm at least gonna try and do my part, which is if all this is going on, let's at least protect the gut. And we know that if you were to change the motility, you can develop cebo then you can get leaky gut, and then you can develop these other problems. So I was like, Okay, wait a minute. Now we're seeing that these covered people are having heart issues, brain issues, there's all different kinds of things. I'm like, I can't just get on there and say, well, we got to protect the gut. So I found an article published this month, and I went, Oh, this is what this episode is going to be about. It's going to be about give your neighbor and Atrantil and a hug. Give your neighbor just a little bit of powerful nature's polyphenols and a hug, huh? Yeah. Kudos to Chris Kresser. Because he mentioned this study, in which he went Oh, did you see that thing? So that means like, this study just came out like last week and I was like, Man that stays on top of it. Yeah, a recent study. This is where we're gonna end up. And this is why giving somebody a hug could be very important for your gastrointestinal health. Okay, this is what's gonna be about it given to you in a hug. Okay, so a recent study with rats looked at gastrointestinal motility in the setting of stress. So what these researchers did is they showed that when rats are exposed to acute or moderate amounts of stress is that they were able to show that the rats developed gastroparesis, they did not go into why gastroparesis is slowing of the stomach. I'll explain to my patients that when you go through amount of stress, the sympathetic nervous system slows your intestines down. And were to develop bacterial overgrowth, you have a reflex from your small bowel to your stomach, that slows it down. I get all these people diagnosed as gastroparesis. And when we fix their cebo, the gastroparesis goes away. So these guys were saying, okay, we know that these rats when we expose them to stress, they develop gastroparesis, but we don't really have a way to help them. So then one of them, I really like to see how they decided on this one particular thing, then they decided to check something that has not actually ever been reported before. Someone was that somebody had the wherewithal to say, let's check the oxytocin level. You familiar with oxytocin?
Eric Rieger
11:24 Yeah, I am familiar with oxytocin and, and or pitocin. oxytocin, I think is the endogenous form of pitocin. Correct?
Ken Brown
11:33 Correct. Yeah, it's also known as the hormone that mostly is associated with pregnancy and giving birth. Right, the pitocin part of it, you as a crna. You, you know, you do the epidural and somebody and then you start the pitocin, drip and it and there's lots of contractions,
Eric Rieger
11:49 causes uterine contraction, you get the baby If someone's been induced, and that's what we're doing is we're giving them that hit or pitocin through their IV.
Ken Brown
11:59 Yeah. And so the way that I learned about oxytocin was mostly through my gynecologic rotations, where you're looking at stuff like this. Well, as it turns out, it's a really cool little neuropeptide slash hormone, you made it dead and just have one use that we isolated for our own convenience doesn't just have the one use and then everybody thinks about it. It's been, it's been labeled as the love hormone, the cuddle hormone. It's what helps moms develop their lactation when the baby cries, it's an oxytocin response, all this other really cool stuff. These guys said, hey, what if we got their oxytocin up higher? conceivably, what if the stress decreased their oxytocin raise their vasopressin. And maybe that's why they're having GI issues. Nobody's ever put the link together before where it's like, Look, we just say that, oh, when you're under stress, you're you have gut issues. How, hence the vole hole. So what they're able to show is that these rats with higher levels of oxytocin recovered from the stress and improved gastric motility. their guts recovered when they can raise their oxytocin level. Okay. And then they took these knockout rats and what knockout rats and mice are is that they genetically raise one that is incapable of producing something that they want. So then they raise these rats that were incapable of producing oxytocin, and their gastric motility and their GI tract was horrible. So their data showed that oxytocin directly influences the neural pathway of the stress response. Why is that relevant? Because when we have Angie on and we do our motility, deep dive, maybe a couple different podcasts, and Kresser agreed with me on this one, it all comes down to motility, we have to fix the motility. And this is a particular it's known as a neuropeptide. A lot of people refer to it as a hormone that actually affects the neural motility.
Eric Rieger
13:59 Right
Ken Brown
13:59 And I went, Oh my gosh, I have not heard of this before. So now what we're talking about is oxytocin as a stress adaption that could actually help motility. So rather than just immediately build a cuddle room in my clinic, where patients come in and they get rain and Amber and Andy and my all my other staff will rotate cuddling with patients to improve their oxytocin level. I thought I'd look into the science a little bit more before I just jump into that. And then I it got me thinking with not only is COVID creating all this depression is it is some of the problem because we're isolating ourselves. I mean, I still want I mean, I still don't like the zoom way that we're doing this, but at least we have some interaction but is it conceivable that one of the reasons why we're having so much depression so many of these other issues that are we ignoring our oxytocin?
Eric Rieger
14:58 Hey, you know, I had to quick things one is quick. And that is, I think that now we've established especially with the with the mice or the rats, that oxytocin is not a gender specific marker or a hormone, right? So males and females are going to benefit from this. But a side note long, long ago, I was watching a special and they were talking about some of the side effects that happen to people who happen to be imprisoned, and who were put like into isolation, for whatever reason, you know, down in the hole. And one of the early issues that occurs with them is GI distress. So I kind of feel like, maybe we're going, I mean, beyond the depression beyond the the the things that could just simply drive someone crazy in their own mind by being isolated. A lot of it was just simply inability to have normal functioning GI tract. So
Ken Brown
15:56 anyway. And so let's, let's just keep on that for a second. You have stress, you are able to muscle through some of your gastrointestinal issues. Instead, just have to have to keep the stiff upper lip and keep moving. What you don't realize is that if you're not taking care of your gastrointestinal health, then this could lead to a cascade of other inflammatory things. So how do you improve the inflammatory aspect of everything? That's the really, that's the really interesting thing. Now we have talked improving your immune system by mitigating your inflammatory response using polyphenols. We've talked about improving your NRF two pathway which decreases the inflammatory response. So now I'm going to give you the trifecta of let's go down some vole holes and talk oxytocin. And why do I save vole holes? Because I found this incredible scientists. She's a neurobiologist named Sue Carter. And she's internationally recognized as this behavioral neuro endocrinology PhD. She is the director of the Kinsey Institute, which looks at this and all her work has focused on oxytocin. And she found the what was presumed to be the only mammal that had a monogamous relationship, the prairie vole. So when I say I went down vole holes all the research on oxytocin has actually been done on Prairie voles by this badass scientist named Sue Carter. Yeah, and her work is really cool, because when you read some of this, she studied oxytocin and voles. And the reason why is because they were they were presumed to be the most social mammal and monogamous and they really don't care about their environment. So you can take two moles that love each other, and put them anywhere, and there'll be just as happy because as long as they're socializing, they're, they're super cool. And her first discovery was, voles are not monogamous. In fact, female voles will actually go and mate with a random male vole, and then fight with them afterwards to kick them out to basically come back and be with her lifelong mate. So they have lifelong mates. But the vole will actually go out. And she explained that this is probably it's not like it's a super what's the term for when somebody sleeps around a whole lot? And but the appropriate term is going promiscuous.
Eric Rieger
18:34 Thank you for rescuing. Yeah. None of which we're going to be appropriate for today. But yeah, good save.
Ken Brown
18:43 So it wasn't that these that these female voles were promiscuous, it's that there's a genetic reason for doing this, that if you can have a genetic pooling, where you have more genes, but it's the family rearing aspect, and so what she was able to show is that it doesn't have to be the original Mother/Father, as long as there's a family unit or some sort of unit. And then, you know, she references a lot of psychological studies in humans, which this has been shown multiple times that, you know, this is where it's at. So the vole has a very similar oxytocin response to humans. So it's the perfect mammal to actually study. And at this point, that's why I'm going down boltholes. Now we should probably define really, what oxytocin is on a little more scientific level. oxytocin, it's an evolutionarily ancient neuro modulator, and hormone produced in the hypothalamus where it's pumped directly into the brain and into your circulation. So very complex way to say this thing has been around since the dawn of time, to help us adapt to our environment. And in fact, oxytocin, which is the love hormone is known as the cuddle hormone. It's associated with childbirth and women. But now we realize it's in everybody. When it goes up, that really means that you're in a time of abundance, that means that you're in a time, this is a time to love, this is a time to do things. And when that's up, it actually does all different kinds of things. And we'll get into that in a second. But one thing it definitely does is it improves your immune system by decreasing inflammatory markers, very similar to how the NRF two pathway functions. When there's types of stress, All right, now, your oxytocin goes down, your vasopressin goes up, and you send signals that you're under duress. Does that make sense?
Eric Rieger
20:46 It does. And so basically, if you it just sounds to me, like if you're under a lot of stress, it's hard to love. And if you aren't receiving love, you're probably going to find yourself in a lot of stress.
Ken Brown
20:59 Yes, so here is the thing that nobody's talking about, we've got a massive amount of depression going on, because of COVID. And then we're saying everybody stay away from each other. Yeah. When the reality is what we're going to do at the end of this podcast is talk about how we can increase our oxytocin levels. But just to show how important it is, what was she was able to do just a few of the things it enhanced memory production. It has been shown to increase muscle mass. So it has been shown to help heal wounds quicker. So they can show when your oxytocin levels up. You have less serious infections, you actually can learn things better. You can develop more muscle, it's like kind of a, it's one of those like, that does too much. Well, it's that important. It's one of these homeostasis type hormones. oxytocin vasopressin, she was talking about all different kinds of studies that perhaps one of the reasons why there's a cycle of teen pregnancy in certain lower socio economic areas. Could be that when a mother is stressed, she sends a signal to the baby that's in her. Oh, hey, we got hard times. Yeah, baby. Down regulates its ability to produce oxytocin. Oh, my. So it comes out. guns blazing, not ready to cuddle? Yeah, baby has been sent a signal that says you are being born into hard times. And when that happens, then you can end up with a sequence of events. And it's just tip of the iceberg about where she was going with it. And she showed it with these prairie voles, she had certain moms that were under stress, well, then the baby would have lower oxytocin levels throughout its life. They go so far. Yeah, it's really wild stuff. Super, super wild. Because I'd never really thought about oxytocin before. I've always thought of as a pregnancy thing. And now I'm like, whoa, wait a minute. So what it helps you do is it helps you adapt to a changing environment. I was thinking of a Time Suck. With what? Dan Cummins, Dan Cummins. And I just had to laugh about it. Because he he almost describes this when he was doing the Genghis Khan, he's just like, Yeah, can you imagine being born in this is a kind of like, you're born into this horrible world, and you're just about money. And I'm like, oh, that oxytocin was really low in poor Genghis. Yeah. And yeah,
Eric Rieger
23:29 it really, really was.
Ken Brown
23:31 And so a lot of the oxytocin levels in a community can be manipulated by the strength of the community, and learning from others. So part of what makes the oxytocin go up a little bit, is the reward aspect also. So when you learn from somebody, and you don't have to fail a bunch of times your oxytocin goes higher. So each generation, if done right, should have slightly higher ability to have the oxytocin because you're learning from the next group in front of you. And then it it's, it's a safety thing, the more control you have, the more abundance you have the higher abundance, meaning you're not fighting for your life, not Lamborghini, whatever, I'm pretty sure that, you know,
Eric Rieger
24:20 in a weird anecdotal way, if you think about just growing up and being in a classroom, it seemed like that, in certain subjects, you would have friends that were just more adapt and and better at listening and getting instruction. And so as a lesson progressed, they didn't seem to stress about subject matter. So their ability to relax and learn and take in information. They had a comfort zone with that. So they may have had some amounts of oxytocin being released, which allowed them to take up the material and then they didn't stress as the material is reintroduced. They were tested on I mean, it's, it's a cycle, right? So it's probably there's probably a pattern there, too. Where we can, we can help our young kids and children, etc, by learning how to get comfortable learning, learn how to learn.
Ken Brown
25:07 Yeah, absolutely. Now the good news, Eric, you don't have to worry about this at all, because as we've discussed in multiple different ways, Big Pharma is super excited to be involved in the oxytocin rush here.
Eric Rieger
25:20 Yeah, I'm sure that they've, they've got our best interest at every dollar.
Ken Brown
25:24 So they've got multiple animal studies showing that you can kind of manipulate the oxytocin in an animal. They've got nasal sprays in Europe with just straight oxytocin, we've got this synthetic one pitocin. Well, she's also got a ton of ton of work about how that will never work. Now, it will never work. You cannot play Mother Nature in somebody's body with something so intrinsic and delicate and complicated. So unfortunately, at least in human studies, when they have tried to do this and develop a drug where you just take a shot of oxytocin, and your immune system improves and everything, your body, surprise, surprise, starts to down regulate some of the oxytocin receptors up regulate the vasopressin receptors, because it goes this is weird. This is something's odd, and so then the body automatically offsets it. So then when you stop, you've got all this vasopressin, which is your fight or flight, workplace and when you began
Eric Rieger
26:21 gonna be stressed out to the hilt, it's it's it's no different than when someone over for a long period of time consumes steroids, and then they don't produce their endogenous steroids anymore. I mean, that the adrenal fatigue or they shrivel up, they don't do anything. So it's a it's a real problem.
Ken Brown
26:38 Yeah. So here we are, in this pandemic, the vole hole was I'm I'm worried about chronic conditions, and dysautonomia, and gi issues, which then led to finding the study on the rats, which then used oxytocin to look at. And so here we are, in this pandemic, depression is super high, we're socially isolated. We know that when we're stressed, we're going to have lower levels of oxytocin. It's that seesaw. If you're really stressed out, you're basically telling the vasopressin to go up and oxytocin goes down. Easier said than done, right? Don't be stressed, you'll be fine. So we know that right now everybody's stressed. So your oxytocin is lower, this can lead to my perspective, the GI tract will be affected. So a neurologist will tell you what it will do in the brain. a cardiologist will tell you what it will do in the heart. But we do know that oxytocin affects gi motility. Gi motility, in my opinion, is the underlying reason why all these chronic conditions are actually developing. So you're gonna have poor intestinal motility, you feel bad, which actually leads you to want to be more socially isolated. So a lot of the stuff when people are like, man, I just, I'm unhappy. I'm depressed, but I don't want to be around anybody. Yeah, give you a neuropeptide reason why that is your oxytocin is low. Your vasopressin is saying this is not the time to be cuddling. You know, we are flight thing going on. Right?
Eric Rieger
28:10 It is getting to these, there are many, many examples it seems in life where we you can easily fall into these catch 22's, where you're, yeah, you're heading this one way. But for you to recover, you almost have to break the bounds and force yourself to do something that will allow you to get better. Otherwise, you're just going to stay unfortunately, in this cycle.
Ken Brown
28:31 Yeah. So if you're listening to this, and you do have a little, any type of depression, any type of anxiety, we need to get your oxytocin up. If you have irritable bowel, if you've got cebo. If you've got any other gastrointestinal issues, we need to get your oxytocin up. Oh, if there's a slight possibility that you could be exposed to a virus. You need your oxytocin up so that your immune system reacts appropriately. Now let's get to oxytocin and the immune system is that oxytocin does exactly what our NRF two pathway does. They all work together, polyphenols, decrease interleukin six, which helps mediate your response. Yeah, it turns out oxytocin mediates the body's response so that you don't overreact. It's all about the thing that we talked about the endocannabinoid system, it's about being in balance. So oxytocin actually helps your immune system, which could be one of the reasons we said it during the NRF two, podcast but you can almost say, well, maybe a little bit of oxytocin's taking place because when you're NRF two is down. That means that you have higher inflammation. Once you have higher inflammation, that means your oxytocin will go down. So it's that you're exactly right. You got to break a cycle here.
Eric Rieger
29:50 Yeah, you got to you've got to go against intuitively what's Unfortunately, the pattern that feels like that, that you're on the path that you're on, right. You ever think about it? When you've got your friend and you're, you're growing up and your friend, he just broke up with his girlfriend, or if you're a girl, it's your girlfriend, or boyfriend, they're really sad. They don't know what they want to do and feeling really down, but you convince them to come and hang out with the friends, etc. And almost every single time, by the end of the evening or the outing, whatever it is, that particular person is ecstatic that they were, they're surrounded by people that cared about them, they loved them. It sounds like it's a lot of this community that you're describing, because it helped them get through something, right.
Ken Brown
30:34 So this is the crazy thing. So I've talked to patients that been going through a lot, they start going through depression, they start gaining weight. They're like, I don't know, I'm even now I don't want to be around anybody I've put on, you know, 40 pounds, since it's COVID. Oh, I hate to break this to you. You're gonna put on weight if your oxytocin is low. Why? Because your vasopressin goes up, which is your fight or flight, which is your cortisol. So every time that you said, Well, I'll start mingling, once I lose weight. So as a weight loss product, we're going to tell you how to get your oxytocin up. In fact, I was talking to a patient today. Wonderful, just love to see people when they round a corner, and they're just really happy. Yeah, a patient of mine I've had for 17 years, and looks phenomenal. Did his COVID hair looks great. And it's his disease, underlying disease that he sees me for is under total control. And I start finding out, got remarried, has a new social circle. They have a they have a process where they, every Sunday, they have dinner together every whatever. And I went that is it right there. Because in every single medical study, listen to this one more time in every single medical study, a support system and social interaction will outperform drugs and diet. Now, there's a lot of people that would go No, no, no, no, no, you're insane. But if you look across the board, and you start really realizing that and you start teasing out some of these factors, actually people that do have a support system, and it was always theorized, oh, well, they have a support system, because their family members help them make sure they stay on their drugs. Oh, they have a support system, because they've got this and that could be oxytocin. Yeah, it could be this one thing that nobody's talking about?
Eric Rieger
32:29 Yeah, definitely. No, I agree. I mean, just take an inventory of the people that you know, best. And not I mean, probably not every time someone will have a different example. But usually, your happiest friends, your happiest family members are those who are in touch surrounded by not only support, but they give support and they receive it. And I'm just thinking of just several people. Yeah, that's who they are.
Ken Brown
32:56 So the oxytocin's every night, this Volvo was really big this that Sue Carter has dedicated her whole career to it. And the science behind it is all her data. And it's really big. It's the first time I started looking into it. But of course, I got to do what we try and do, which is bridge some bridge some gaps. So we will try and give you some tips on how to increase your oxytocin naturally. But I also want to look at a couple other things, we always seem to find that when you start looking at Mother Nature, secret weapon polyphenols, is there any data with this? So I really struggled to find a direct one to one, but there was a couple small studies looking at breast breast milk production, through the elevation of oxytocin. And this particular study showed that the combination of two different polyphenols, one of them being reservatrol, increased milk production through oxytocin release. So that was one of the only times that actually found that polyphenols directly increased oxytocin. And they were looking at it to try and stimulate more milk production. Okay, and then there was one randomized trial on delivery. And they were looking at, interestingly enough deal extract and its effect on oxytocin. And they showed that it actually showed a randomized trial where when you added the dill extract, which is a polyphenol, then it improved the delivery process. So smooth muscle contract, contractility, etc. And then I found this one, which is a little bit interesting, it makes a little bit more sense. Because we know this, we say this all the time. This article comes from the journal of probiotics and health, microbes, oxytocin, and healthful longevity. In this particular tastes, they showed how our microbiome interacts and through decreasing what they believe are different inflammatory mediators. We know that Do it has a direct effect through the vagal nerve directly on the hypothalamus to oxytocin levels. So, all of this is kind of extrapolating Dr. Carter does most of her work on these voles and amazing on family units and stuff, that one right there that nobody's really looking into as do these polyphenols also have an effect on the oxytocin level couple small studies, but we do know that these polyphenols increase the microbial diversity. So the reason why I said take out Ron teal and give somebody a hug, is because we know that the polyphenols, stable large molecular polyphenols, increase the microbial diversity. And we know when you have that, that a lot of other beneficial things happen. These guys in this paper showed a direct vagal mediated oxytocin response, meaning the vagus nerve, the great highway is a motility thing, we keep circling back to the same things. So other than make sure that you do the usual stuff that was talking about get some good sleep. I believe that polyphenols probably increase x increase oxytocin levels. And we know that at least in a couple small studies, that you can increase oxytocin through several different smaller polyphenols. And then this final one was that if your microbiome is diverse, you will produce more oxy tosun. That's really cool. That's really nice. Here's what's the best. It's called the cuddle hormone for a reason.
Eric Rieger
36:39 Now, hugs
Ken Brown
36:40 let's quit being so sciency get our accion. Oh, no, no, don't I actually googled that. And I started to type in how to increase oxy. And it was like cotton levels were to get. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Eric Rieger
36:57 no. Yeah, yeah, you don't you don't want that of your teenager how to increase your oxy acne wipes, you know, so.
Ken Brown
37:07 But it's kind of interesting, because you because you, you look at these little voles, and you realize it's probably, the more the more that you love and share, the more that you open up, the more that you allow your body to increase the oxytocin receptors, so that they can be saturated more, and you're getting away from that sympathetic response. So what's your favorite way to raise your oxytocin?
Eric Rieger
37:30 Ah, man, I can tell you right now a hug from a from wife and or family member friend. And any of that it sounds to me would be the most fun way. And then favorite way to to raise my own oxytocin. Alright,
Ken Brown
37:46 so there's lots of ways to raise your oxytocin. And this is a this is a quiz for you.
Eric Rieger
37:53 Oh, no.
Ken Brown
37:54 Yeah. So we know that exercise raises oxytocin. Okay. We know that listening with your eyes, meaning real eye contact with somebody can increase your oxytocin being intimate with someone will increase your oxytocin. Okay. And basically, the whole cuddle aspect is there. So if you can incorporate all those different things, is there one particular act that would really knock the socks out of the oxytocin ballpark? If you could exercise be intimate? be close with somebody share a moment? Oh, oh.
Eric Rieger
38:37 Probably, man. It's rolling dice here. All those are things that hopefully everyone's getting the opportunity to do daily. I would say getting close to somebody would be the one that raises the most, maybe
Ken Brown
38:50 you and I think differently.
Eric Rieger
38:55 I guess you're about to break out a barbell not really sure.
Ken Brown
38:57 No.
Eric Rieger
38:58 Okay.
Ken Brown
38:59 Exercise, being intimate. Being close. Having human contact. sex. Sex is amazing for raising oxytocin. So
Eric Rieger
39:08 Oh, yeah, no, I mean, um, maybe, maybe. You're what? Maybe I was getting too g rated.
Ken Brown
39:17 I'm just saying that, that do not underestimate the power that that being intimate with a close partner. A company accomplishes all those things at the same time.
Eric Rieger
39:26 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, I get it.
Ken Brown
39:29 You say another way. Another way to increase oxytocin is to have an orgasm. So okay, having but you know, but they've also shown that by having a close intimate partner, the oxytocin goes up much higher. Your body knows you can't fake it, you know? Sure. It's so that's so alright. So, exercise, social gatherings. Listen with your eyes, have sex. Oh, give a gift. being generous will actually bump your oxytocin
Eric Rieger
40:00 Interesting now that that actually is is is awesome. So sorry but I guess the the noble rewards in life tend to tend to be associated with doing good deeds right? Because you share love with someone and that's so good deed you're letting them know that you care about them you you know you foster your relationships with with your friends then that that's that's a good deed you're helping them out. So yeah, I mean to me it makes sense. Yeah, it's funny you didn't you didn't mention that, that using businesses as a reason to screw somebody over increases oxytocin. You didn't mention that theft or isolation increases oxytocin, it's all of the it's all of the opposite things that we all say that we want to do for Yeah,
Ken Brown
40:48 so next time you're in traffic and somebody kind of a jerk and cuts you off. Don't just sit there and get super upset. Just go, oh, that person's oxytocin is low. They're not doing the things to cultivate their oxytocin levels.
Eric Rieger
41:01 Yeah, put your car in park and then look at them and listen with your eyes.
Ken Brown
41:04 Yeah, listen with your eyes.
Eric Rieger
41:10 Maybe not. That may not be the right.
Ken Brown
41:12 Yeah, maybe that's not the right way. You could also I had to laugh. So a deal I was I was talking to her deal yesterday, my, my, my wonderful Scheduler. And I was trying to describe what I want to talk about today. And I was like, hey, do you know that like, heading a dog has been shown to increase oxytocin levels? And what about a cat? I have a cat and I was like, No, no, never.
Eric Rieger
41:35 Not a cat.
Ken Brown
41:36 No. Only dogs. I think cats also i'm not sure the study was done on dogs. So it just got me thinking I'm like, Okay, look, we're in this COVID environment. There's so many things against us. And yet we have a few things under our control. So listening to music, playing music can also raise that but waking up every day and saying, Okay, I'm going to try and figure out how to raise my oxytocin, which means that I'm going to try engage with somebody a little bit more, which means that I'm gonna try and take care of myself a little bit more if I'm going to be easier on myself. Because when you're hard on yourself, you raise your vasopressin level, which decreases your oxytocin. So give yourself a break. If anything, do it for your intestinal motility. Say, I'm, I'm going to make a concerted effort to which is why I said at the very beginning of the show, I'm trying to call mom more because we need to keep each other's oxytocin up, but you know, she lives alone. And I want to make sure that, you know, she's able to keep that oxytocin up. So this is a this is the vole hole called How to Increase your oxytocin kind of out of left field, I started down a motility path and we're going to come full circle because once we start really hitting that motility, this may become standard of care for a gastroenterologist to help patients.
Eric Rieger
42:56 I mean, kind of a cool intersection now, I mean, we do a lot of things whenever people come through and use everything from diet to behavior to recommend exercise, why not just start saying be sure that you give a hug to your family members everyday or a close friend every day? Yeah,
Ken Brown
43:13 and that's the problem is that we're in COVID. So that was one of my theories, that the isolation could be controlled Yeah, massive increase in depression, no doubt.
Eric Rieger
43:25 No doubt at all.
Ken Brown
43:27 got me thinking. So I would like to check oxytocin levels on you guys that do jujitsu because there's there's lots of hard cuddling going on during jujitsu if you call it cuddling, choking someone, for instance, which I think has kind of a has an oxytocin bump, but also a vasopressin fight or flight going on. I'm wondering if jujitsu people I'd need to check with Ricardo Abreu and see we just need to monitor his oxytocin levels as he's as he's smashing people
Eric Rieger
44:04 as he is if he uses the same tone as he aggressively went after you as a polyp. I don't know that I want to help him raise his oxytocin levels.
Ken Brown
44:14 Yeah, that's true. Maybe it's Yeah, maybe it's low. So um, you know, we we keep coming back to the same thing we keep coming back to intestinal health is the root cause of all health. And now we're finding these different things that are really subtle that we can do in a holistic approach. You can increase your NRF two levels by doing certain things, you can increase your oxytocin. And all of this will play into the immune mediated aspect. I start thinking of people that are diagnosed with a pretty serious, you know, chronic situation, and it's depressing and it's sad and they're maybe in pain and all that just keeps lowering that oxytocin. If you could just get that back up. Maybe it'll break the cycle and you could start on a road to recovery.
Eric Rieger
45:01 Yeah, I don't know, either. But it would make sense. I mean, maybe having people isolated in a hospital, for instance, especially during COVID where we're not allowing people in there is actually stunting their ability to overcome disease. I mean, think about that when how many people and stories have we heard of firsthand so and so had to go in for surgery, we don't really know how they're doing that but they call and said that they're just going out of their mind you're stuck there and it's taking longer for them to to be released from the hospital. I mean, it could have a profound effect as we're trying to stem the the the spread of the virus, but at the same time, we're not allowing other people to heal. You know, at the rate that they should, I don't know, it's it's pandemics present lots and lots of problems that are
Ken Brown
45:49 not been trying to figure out there. There used to be there was a gastroenterologist in my community that when he retired, he, he loved dogs. And so he had like these show dogs, he would bring them as animals and just allow patients to pet the dogs. Yeah. And now I look back, I'm like, wow, I'm like, let's take it up a notch. I mean, if we know that these prairie voles really raise their artsy tosun levels, then maybe we should have some variables and just like let them bite people and just inject the oxytocin and I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to talk to Dr. Carter about that one. I'm not really sure that's gonna work. Yeah, you just made oxytocin a venom. So the hard part is you got to get the prairie voles super happy and comfortable, then you gotta piss it off enough to bite your
Eric Rieger
46:35 budget. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, I don't I don't think that's the avenue but that's okay.
Ken Brown
46:41 And I do believe that they have the full science on the half life of it also. So it's not like it happens. And then unlike the NRF, two pathway that stays elevated for some time, the oxytocin is much like an Endocannabinoid like, like an amide. It comes out and it works and it comes back. And it just is as needed when it comes. So what I'm saying is you got to get that parallel the prairie vole to bite you really quick, because I think the half life is only like 30 minutes. It's gonna be hard.
Eric Rieger
47:10 Yeah, I it's, it's going to be hard to, to prove to even see your ideas worth anything. You know, I don't know.
Ken Brown
47:19 What we're doing here laughing a little bit that's raising our oxytocin also. So even if just at least make some jokes about prairie voles, and maybe that'll raise your
Eric Rieger
47:28 venomous prairie voles. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of jokes in there. But yeah, that would be weird and strange. But, yeah, maybe you'll get happy out of it, too.
Ken Brown
47:40 So that's the vole hole I went down. So can you summarize all this for me really quick, because I realized I was kind of all over the map on this one. But that's not I think it all
Eric Rieger
47:48 over the map at all. I mean, he just gave more reinforcing evidence that the fact is, is that can paint the reason why we don't like being isolated is because we're not supposed to be but one of the many reasons that a pandemic really stinks and, and not being able to see your friends why people are longing to get back and seeing their families because we're meant to be social. So when it's safe, and you can figure it out, by all means be as social as possible. Find the people that you care about the most embrace them, tell them that you hug them, it's it's not just enough to see them on camera, it's not just enough to, to just hear them on the phone. You You really want to go embrace and hug and let somebody else know. And then I like the other one, too, listening. Look at someone hear them. That's one of the most empathetic things that you can do for someone is just be quiet, don't talk over them. And let them voice whatever is on their mind, happy, sad or indifferent. And it's actually going to work to your benefit to do it. kind of crazy.
Ken Brown
48:53 Are you actually talking about oxytocin or the fact that I do interrupt all the time, and this is just a polite way to tell me to just listen,
Eric Rieger
48:59 so you didn't do it? Right. You're supposed to sit there and just keep staring in one of these days. I'm just kidding. Yeah, now? I do. I do think it's kind of cool. There's a lot of lessons in there if you just want to be happy and healthy. Scott Golden Rule stuff, treat people as you want to be treated. You want to be hugged, give you you need a little help do some charity. Yeah, it's it's, it will all work to your benefit. Well,
Ken Brown
49:19 we know that giving a gift works. We know that improving your microbiome works. So your sign behind you your bloating relief, it's what we do. I'll try until what you should do is buy a bunch of Tron to and give it away as a gift and hug that person. And then you're going to bump your oxytocin way up and you're going to help that person bump their oxytocin.
Eric Rieger
49:42 I don't see how you can go wrong with that. You can't
Ken Brown
49:44 go wrong with that. Give Atrantil and give a hug. That's awesome.
Eric Rieger
49:50 Yeah, that's a much better summary summary than what I was working towards.
Ken Brown
49:54 Now, I didn't have time to look into how the endocannabinoid system plays with oxytocin but you know, that's tied And also, because this is all this just shows how complex humans are tied in, we'll eventually get to how improving your endocannabinoid system. But it seems like everything that improves everything that I just said for oxytocin actually decreases the sympathetic response, we get back to the same thing over and over and over again, inflammation creates disease, inflammation does is the root cause of the disease process. When you have inflammation, your NRF two pathway goes down and your oxytocin goes down. So you at least need to take the reins, stop some of the inflammation through a proper diet, eating polyphenols, taking a proper CBD to improve your endocannabinoid system, and then maybe your body will adjust by rising these other systems, these other molecular processes.
Eric Rieger
50:49 Yeah, oxytocin, ultimately, not just a pregnancy hormone or peptide. It's quite important for us throughout our entire existence. So unfortunately, I mean, we mostly in the medical community, at least allopathic Lee only talk about oxytocin as it applies to the maternity ward. So way more important than that,
Ken Brown
51:10 it's way more important to that. And you know, that we really can't have animals in the endoscopy suite. But I'm gonna ask a small favor since your hair is really grown out. Okay. I think we should let stressed out patients just pet your head as they're waiting to go back for their colonoscopy.
Eric Rieger
51:24 Yeah, day after hand sanitizer, I guess. Again,
Ken Brown
51:29 or somebody that's super stressed out here. Would you mind letting them pay?
Eric Rieger
51:34 As long as I don't have to lay down and kick my leg several times across?
Ken Brown
51:40 Well, that's awesome. Yeah. oxytocin, we just keep throwing curveballs at you.
Eric Rieger
51:44 Yeah, well, hey, listen. For the listeners out there. I think that we keep hitting hinting at it but pretty soon we need to dedicate a series or a show to the vagus nerve and we have actively been looking and talking to a few different people will have a vagal nerve expert on here pretty soon and I'm excited about it. It really ties into exactly what Ken is talking about with oxytocin and everything that we can do to help out our parasympathetic nervous system which is the relax the love the feel the the rest and digest mode, I guess, if you will, for our bodies. Yes, it's quite a bit I think
Ken Brown
52:26 we're gonna end up so we're gonna let Angie run point on this because she has done so much research on the dysautonomia, which is the the dysregulation of your neurologic processes in relation to different organ systems. And that's the whole Potts, maules, cebo relation, Ehlers Danlos, and all these other things. So we'd start with that. But I think if we can figure out the motility aspect, it helps so many people, it's all it's all connected. And it's an it's almost like you can't just do the one thing, you can't just, it's like you got to do it all. You got to get socialized, and you got to feel good about yourself, you got to be happy or try to be happy. Anyway, that works for you meditate, everything start working on that, though, you will start losing weight, then we can start the healing the gut it all, it's all coming together. And if we could develop some sort of really nice rationale why people are having issues they are. And I think that alone helps people to start on the road to recovery. Because just being told it's all in your head is doesn't cut it.
Eric Rieger
53:43 No, not at all. Not at all. Well, Ken, I think that the instructions are hopefully clear. Go hug somebody. Go hug somebody.
Ken Brown
53:53 Yeah, so as always, this is a medical show, but I'm not giving medical advice. I'm a medical doctor Eric delivers anesthesia for a living. But just speak with your doctor. If we said anything that looks like you need to question it, but we're in social isolation. So don't randomly go up and hug people. But you can certainly you can certainly improve your oxytocin by sharing this episode, possibly liking this episode that will increase your oxytocin level.
Eric Rieger
54:24 Yeah, absolutely. Well, I can share I can share. This is obviously code file installation number 11. I'm Eric Rieger here with the awesome co host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. Thank you all for the continued email and shares that we get. I don't know. I'm amazed every single week that we have more and more people who write in and say, Hello, thanks for doing the show. So as long as we get those will, will keep meeting up and hopefully we're we're covering topics that they interest you
Ken Brown
54:53 know, I want to send it when we send this email out to let people know that we've published this I'm going to send a virtual hug know what virtual hugs Come on back at us just just take just just just take a little video of you just hugging.
Eric Rieger
55:04 Oh, yeah, yeah, hugging. Oh and quick shout out to Sheila Unger, she she actually you asked about the family earlier she sent a a free complimentary sample of a Texas Tech face covering out the gauge. That's awesome. Cool. Yeah, awesome.
Ken Brown
55:23 So they're right there. She raised her oxytocin level he did
Eric Rieger
55:26 that was that wasn't a charitable gift. Absolutely. Okay. I think that's gonna do it for this episode. We will see you all next time. Stay safe. Give a hug. Listen to people. And don't forget to like and share and we'll talk to you all soon. Right on
Transcribed by https://otter.ai