HOW YOUR DYSBIOTIC MICROBES ARE CONTROLLING YOUR BRAIN AND WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT

About half of our 70 trillion cells are microbial - bacteria, viruses and fungi. And they’ve had billions of years longer than us to figure out how to survive.

One set of strategies they use to stay warm, fed and safe is quite ingenious: they live in our gut and then can directly control our brain to get us to feed them their favorite foods. Seriously.

We’re like meat puppets that bring them an all you can eat buffet.

So what happens when you embark on a strategy to successfully break down biofilms and kick out those mofo’s? They fight back. Oh yeah.

They can create intense cravings and even control your spinal nerves to get you to walk over to the fridge and put their food of choice in your mouth. Seriously.

How da fudge can they do that? They’re tiny, and you’re huge!

They do it using something called Quorum Sensing. They can basically sense how strong their numbers are and once the time is right, they switch on group behavior.

So are you powerless? How the heck are you meant to exert agency when dysbiotic and overgrowth bacteria and candida are literally activating your nerves and controlling your brain?

Here’s where we can take a cue from the story of Odysseus and how he safely navigated the Call of the Sirens. Upon being warned that the Sirens song was so beautiful that every sailor who heard it was so enchanted that every ship and crew crashed upon the rocks and perished, he took matters into his own hands.

He instructed all of crew to put wax in their ears so that they couldn’t hear the song. Odysseus, however, never one to give up a free concert, decided to enjoy the song but had his crew tie him to the mast of this ship so that he couldn’t do anything dumb.

So, was Odysseus powerless against the call of the sirens? No, because he knew he would be powerless.

And so must we be similarly proactive against the call of all the sirens that our dying dysbiotic colonies will make to get you to feed them.

First: list all the things you know are feeding them. They’re “your” favorite foods that you know make you feel worse.

Second: get ‘em out of your space. If they’re not there it does take more prolonged, conscious effort to eat the donut than getting an Uber Eats or driving to the store.

Third: do you have any social support that can tie you to your ships mast?

Yes, microbial control of your brain is a real thing. But a thing that you can overcome through cultivating a healthy, balanced microbiota. And when you successfully start attacking pathogenic microbial colonies it’s very common for there to be cravings. So stick with it and show them who’s in control.

This is a great explanation of quorum sensing, virulence and symbiosis. These guys are talking to each other all the time . . .