Dr Rupy: Today Simon Mills is back on the podcast. He's a complementary health pioneer from the inception of the term in 1979 and later in the fields of integrated health and social prescription. And today we are talking specifically about spices to get into your diet and why. We talk about turmeric and the potential mechanism of action in the gut, cayenne pepper, rosemary, sage, ginger and many more, as well as if spices can be prebiotics and whether they have a role in preventing diabetes and dementia. Just a refresher, Simon graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in medical sciences and has been a herbal practitioner since 1977. In 2016, he was appointed as herbal strategist at Pukka Herbs, leading new initiatives, clinical research and most recently reducing antibiotic demand, which is something that we touch on today as well. Remember, you can watch the podcast on YouTube on The Doctor's Kitchen channel, and then you can also subscribe to The Doctor's Kitchen Eat, Listen, Read newsletter every single week. I send you a recipe to eat, something to listen to, something to read, something to watch, something that is mindfully curated for your enjoyment and to help you have a healthier, happier week. Plus, if you want to take your health to the next level, download The Doctor's Kitchen app for free. There's a 14 day free trial, you can get it from the App Store, and you can choose from a selection of hundreds of recipes that you can filter according to health goals. We have over 500 recipes and counting and lots of fantastic positive feedback. But for now, please enjoy my conversation with Simon Mills. Simon, let's get right into it. What are the benefits of turmeric for longevity, inflammation and weight loss? Those are the three things that people always ask me about. So in whatever way you want to answer that, let's get stuck into the benefits of turmeric.
Simon Mills: Well, of those three, inflammation does seem to be the core. We know that inflammation is the basis of pretty much every problem that goes on in the body. We think of inflammation as itis, you know, cystitis and bronchitis and so on, but we now understand inflammation is the basis for ageing, for cancer, for chronic diseases of all sorts. So if we can find something that reduces the level of inflammation in the body, then we can start projecting it further forward. Now, we're talking about turmeric and turmeric is an extraordinary remedy, it's an extraordinary food. We all know it because we have it in our curries, that yellow stuff. And you know, if there's a factory that's producing turmeric products, they have to have a separate annex because everyone goes in wearing space suit masks because they come out yellow. It stains everything and you know, you don't want your white linen suit anywhere near it. So it's, we all know it because of the yellowness of it. And we know it, if anyone ever has been to Asia, we know that they have it all day and every day, from breakfast through to dinner as as part of their spice rich foods. So it's probably the, I would think of it as the queen of the spices. It's it's the one that probably has the most research around it. It's the most puzzling, but I think there's also very exciting prospect emerging. So turmeric is something that people eat in large quantities in Asia. Two to five grams a day by the average person living in India.
Dr Rupy: Two to five grams.
Simon Mills: Five grams of turmeric every day. So that's a a heap teaspoonful in effect. And if you compare with what we're eating, unless we're really fond of our nights out in the curry house, we probably don't get anywhere near that. And people worry about can we have too much of it? That's the first answer. People do eat a lot of it. It's safe. But then everyone then worries about the fact that it contains curcumin and you find people selling supplements and turmeric that are high in curcumin, that are powerful because they've got better absorbed curcumin. The difficulty is is that curcumin does not get absorbed from the gut, from the digestive system. One, two percent max. It's because it's a clumpy molecule, we call it a polyphenol. It's a sort of molecule you get in all fruits and vegetables and vegetables. They are one of the key ways in which they're healthy. Curcumin is one of those. It's a very important nutrient, but it does not get into the tissues. So you can improve the absorption a bit by mixing it with what people do is black pepper. And so that's routinely done to improve the absorption. It maybe moves it from one and a half to three percent absorption, you know, so it doubles it, but it's still pretty small. Almost certainly you get the same benefit by mixing with ginger or with any other spice. And you get the theme here. Essentially, when you're having turmeric, you're not having it on its own. You're having it with all these other ones and with cumin and coriander and all the others. It's the mixture that seems to be the key. But that's still a puzzle. You're still only getting a very small part of curcumin into the body, which is probably just as well because it's not very safe in high quantities. If it was to be injected, for example, it could do you some harm. So there's a reason why nature does it that way. It keeps the curcumin in the gut, in the digestion. So the next question is, is it doing any good there? And the answer is absolutely. And the more we look at it, the more we realise that actually you don't need to absorb curcumin. You don't need to absorb turmeric. It's doing all the goodness in the gut. Particularly with those bacteria, the healthy bacteria that live low down there. We call it the microbiome. Everyone's getting very excited about it because for very good reason, you know, we know that there's 10 times as many cells in the microbiome than there are in the rest of us, probably a hundred times as many genes in there. So it's a very powerful part of us, but it's sort of in a way outside us. It's in its own compartment. So what we understand now is that the microbiome is talking to the rest of the body through the gut wall. And there's this conversation going on. The gut wall supports the microbiome. The microbiome when it's well produces products that then the gut wall makes the gut wall healthier, protects the gut wall integrity, and then feeds the rest of the body likewise. The thing about curcumin and these polyphenols, as I said, they're very large, clumpy molecules that can't get in through the wall. What the microbiome does, which is really exciting, and this is for all the plant polyphenols, is it breaks them up into small molecules. We call them phenols. If you want an example of a very well known phenol, aspirin is a simple phenol. And we all know what that powerful that can be. What the microbiome does is it converts plant foods into lots of aspirin-like breakdown products, which easily move through the gut wall because they're small and they're sort of hyperactive. They're like, you know, fast BMW type actors and move quickly through the through the tissues. And almost certainly the effects on the circulation and on inflammation is from these small molecules. But the other thing that the curcumin and the turmeric and particularly does, we now have evidence for, is that actually reduces other sources of inflammation that come from the food, from the gut, from the digestive system. And most inflammation begins in the gut. When you think about it, that's where all the foreign stuff comes in. So if we can find a way of reducing the inflammatory load, shall we say, the stuff that the troublesome stuff that can come from our innards into the rest of the body, then we're beginning to start talking. And so the clever thinking is that turmeric and indeed the other spices, because we now ginger and cinnamon, cumin, cardamom, all seem to be working in the same way. They they're like, they have these polyphenols, these phytonutrients in buckets. They're very high concentrated. So it looks as though they're plants on steroids, so to speak, you know, they're really much more powerful. You only need small amounts to have the effect of a large meal, you know. So the spices can really add real value. And the turmeric is likely to work indirectly from its effects on the gut. So if we reduce inflammation, then other things follow. So you mentioned longevity. Well, clearly longevity is all about cell damage and tissue damage and breakdown of as the years roll by. If you can reduce your inflammation, you increase the life of your tissues and the rest of you. And almost, I mean, I want to keep eating spices. I'm already 103 as you can tell. So I'm going to carry on eating spices just to keep going because they are the most concentrated way of which you can sort of reduce some of these burdens, these problems.
Dr Rupy: Just before we dive into some of the benefits of reducing inflammation a bit more, I think just to pause there for the listener or viewer, just to reiterate that when you consume something and you put something into your digestive tract, it's still technically outside your body, even though it's inside your body, if you see what I mean. So it hasn't crossed that that barrier into your bloodstream. And so what your gut is doing is essentially being the gatekeeper of what is allowed into your body, into your true body, i.e. into your bloodstream, and breaking it down appropriately as needed to facilitate that.
Simon Mills: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, and just as well, isn't it? That we have that protection because, you know, we eat all sorts of stuff. And if we didn't have a good digestive system, we'd blow up. There was a H.G. Wells, you know, the science fiction writer who was a scientist before he, as well as writing books, he remarked that if he fed his hamsters with egg, they would be fine. If he injected them with egg, they'd die. What was the difference? It was the digestive system breaks down and makes safe a food which if it would got into the bloodstream would be dangerous. So protein, if it got into the bloodstream, the body would think it's an immune threat, you know, like giving the wrong blood transfusion, you know. So we depend on the digestion to, as you say, to keep the food on the outside until it's ready to be taken in. And it's the microbiome is a large part of that, by the way.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, absolutely. And what you mentioned actually about the absorbability of certain turmeric preparations, whether it's curcumin, certain curcuminoids, the whole turmeric itself. I actually didn't realize A, how low the absorption is, and B, how low the absorption is still in absolute terms, despite the addition of, you know, black pepper or ginger or peppering.
Simon Mills: There are, there's some quite clever things. There's a there's a product with has fenugreek, by the way, which is which is another Indian, we use that a lot, yeah, yeah, which apparently brings curcumin over a bit more.
Dr Rupy: Oh, wow.
Simon Mills: And there's high bioavailability curcumin by a colleague who's very keen on that to bump up the levels a bit. But T and I do agree that, you know, there's still a huge place for curcumin outside the body, so to speak, still in the digestive.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah.
Simon Mills: Yeah. So that that's, I think that would be my starting point, you know, how can we improve the function of the gut and its protective benefits. And then diabetes, longevity, you name it, let's start the ball rolling. The other thing that I would add is I've already mentioned pepper and ginger and cayenne and cardamom. They're all hot spices. They have that bite to them, don't they? And there's a certain molecule attached to them. They're all slightly different, but they basically feel hot. And the reason they work is because they're tickling your pain fibres. I mean, it's literally that's what generates the heat. So these things, including turmeric, feel hot by tickling these fibres, mainly in the mouth and the throat and gut and gullet. And what happens is you get a reflex increase in blood flow. So the feeling of heat is actually an illusion. You're not actually burning, you're just tickling those pain fibres. Of course, if you had a really powerful spice, you know, chilli, whatever, food of Induloo or whatever, that does feel as though your head blowing off, but in fact, it is illusion, nevertheless. And what you're getting, and this is the important thing, you're getting this increased blood supply in the wall of the digestive system first, but then by reflex through the rest of the body. And we know that what that's doing is is it's improving the way in which the blood vessels work, which is another place of importance for all sorts of illnesses, conditions. So we can add that before it gets anywhere in the body, turmeric is already kicking off the blood supply simply because it's a spice.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Simon Mills: Like these other ones.
Dr Rupy: And so concerns that people might have for particular supplements, so they have very highly potent or purified forms of the chemicals that are perhaps in their phenolic form rather than the polyphenol form, i.e., you know, the the more metabolized versions. Are there any safety concerns for those kind of supplements versus the whole turmeric?
Simon Mills: Well, this is where we start getting more and more into the unknown. You see, what I always answer is, what did people do and what have they done for centuries or millennia in the case of spices? And that's where I start because we know where we are with that. If someone come wakes up, you know, one morning and says, ah, I've got a new technology here, I'm going to put some nanopharmacologicals and microcapsules or whatever it is into the system that's bound to change it, then immediately I start, well, hang on, that's not what we've done. So and the more novel the intervention, the more unknown the consequences. And my instinct is always to go back to the oldest way of doing it if we can. And that's by taking it as food or as a concentrate at the best, you know, in India they do use turmeric as a medicine.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. And in terms of, so we've talked about inflammation, the impact of turmeric being mainly mediated by the microbes that we find in our gut. We can, I can understand sort of the leap to longevity in terms of reducing inflammation, which is, you know, the foundation of a lot of conditions that I see as a as a doctor in the NHS, whether it's blood pressure, whether it's the risk of cancer, etc. What about weight loss? How how might turmeric might how might turmeric be helping with weight loss? Is this something that you've come across?
Simon Mills: Yes. And well, again, take a step slightly back. Because weight loss follows weight gain. And weight gain is often associated with what we call metabolic conditions or metabolic syndrome even. And that, as we know, unfortunately, can be a stepping stone towards pre-diabetes and diabetes. So if we can change the way in which the metabolism responds, for example, to having more carbs, more carbohydrates, if we could improve the, if I switch on the furnace a bit so that it burns up these things rather than let them clog up the system, that would be a step towards improving what we the metabolism of these things. And the answer is we've got a lot of evidence. At Pukka, we've been working on a project to encourage people to increase their spice intake simply to improve their the rest of their diet because we we we know living in particularly in our times now, it's very expensive to have a fully healthy diet in the way that we would ideally want people to have. So if they're having to cope with less ideal foods, can we make them a bit better quality by adding the spices? And the answer is yes. There's a lot of evidence now building up that things like cinnamon and ginger, Nigella, the black seed is another one that comes in fenugreek, I've already mentioned, has evidence of improving metabolic health, the stepping stone to the conversion of carbs into fat. So if you want weight loss, we want to reverse that process. And although there's no quick fix, you know, if I had a quick recipe for weight loss, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you, you'd have to video me in the Bahamas somewhere. That's still an illusion, isn't it? But to work on the processes that for many people seem to be stuck, they diet, they do this and the other, but the weight is stubborn. If we can nudge the metabolism so that it's burning up better and not laying down fat and not putting on weight, then that is the that's the clue. And there is real evidence to show that the spices can do that, can shift that metabolic control.
Dr Rupy: In terms of the quantity of spices that we should be getting into our diets every day from a collection of all, you know, the the variety of them that we have in our supermarket shelves or independent or whatever. What kind of quantities are we are we talking about? I mean, I have I have a ton of spices in my diet, you know, every meal, I'm always getting different sort of spices in, but I'm a foodie, you know, I I love the flavour combinations and all that kind of stuff. I'm probably not your average person. So if I'm thinking about this purely from a functional lens, what is the general amount in teaspoons that I should be aiming for?
Simon Mills: Well, the evidence for the metabolic thing I was talking about earlier is in most cases sort of half a teaspoon a day is that sort of quantity. I actually did a infographic with our Pukka campaign in which I put an ordinary, it was a saucer, you know, and a little teaspoon on it and I just weighed up the quantities of the spices which have shown to have significant clinical effects in clinical trials. And they're little spots on the plate. And then I did the picture and I thought on its own, that could have been a tablespoon. And so I got an apple and put it next to it as by contrast. And the apple is a giant. The the spice piles are very small. So it's not a huge quantity that you need. So I would say, you know, if you were to have two or three meals a day that were Middle Eastern, Asian, with those lovely tasting aromatic spices, you'd be well on the way. And then if you wanted to make sure, then you can buy supplements, sometimes concentrated supplements of things like turmeric and cinnamon and ginger in capsules so you can just swallow them. And if it's a if it's the straight herb concentrated, then no problems.
Dr Rupy: Okay. Yeah. Brilliant. In terms of the preparations, just bringing it back to turmeric, I'm always asked, you know, what is there a difference, first of all, between the different preparations available for something like turmeric, powder, capsules, oils, shots, fresh, or or frozen or whatever. And what would be the desired preparation to take every single day?
Simon Mills: Start again with what people do, and that's the powder mixed in with the food. And dried turmeric is more concentrated than fresh. So if with the fresh turmeric, you've got slightly more subtle taste, but you also need more of it because it hasn't been concentrated. It's an interesting notion that drying the plant was always the first step to making it a medicine. And the old word for a dried plant in middle Europe was drogen.
Dr Rupy: Drogen. Oh, okay.
Simon Mills: From whence we get the word drug. So those of us who still talk about herbs as medicines, talk about them as herbal drugs, and we're very proud of that name because that's exactly where it came from. So to make turmeric more medicinal, you should dry it just to get more bang for your buck, more concentration. Oil is good because again, that's what people do. They cook it in ghee and they they they turn it into an oil-based material. So that's still looking good. Capsules can be a concentrated form of the extract. And as long as no one's tinkered with it, you know, and and and tried to do a laboratory conversion on any of it, it's still looking good. I mean, the thing about these things, turmeric especially, it's as tough as old boots. You know, it can take all sorts of handling.
Dr Rupy: Okay. Yeah.
Simon Mills: So it's, you know, look at the dose, the equivalent of its dose in dried form. And you're looking for one to three grams a day would be a good dose of the dried turmeric. Now, if it was the fresh one, you probably need to multiply that, you know, by two or three because the fresh is much more, is much less concentrated.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Simon Mills: Oils and other shots, you just look at the label and see what the equivalent is in terms of the original dried turmeric.
Dr Rupy: Okay, so a general conversion for dry versus fresh is two or three times. Is that?
Simon Mills: In the case of a root, yes, probably around there. If it's a fresh leaf or something, it's much more. You know, if you've ever collected plants, you know, foraged them and dried them down, you look, you've had a whole bag and it's concentrated down to a few grams. Gosh, that's a tenfold increase in concentration.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. So like dried parsley or dried basil, you know, you're going to need a lot more.
Simon Mills: You need a lot more.
Dr Rupy: Okay, versus something like ginger or
Simon Mills: The roots tend to be more concentrated to start with.
Dr Rupy: Got you. In terms of when people are choosing a quality powdered form, are there particular things that they should be A, looking out for, and B, follow up question, how often should you be changing up your spices? I.e., is there a degradation over time?
Simon Mills: Yeah, no, they do. As soon as you powder anything, it starts oxidizing, starts losing its potency. You know, you do want the freshest possible source. Get the longest sell by if you're if you're buying it in the in the supermarket. If you're buying it loose, nose it. You know, as the name we gave it, you know, you nose it because you can tell if it's feeling fresh. If it's feeling if it smells a bit manky as we used to say, then, you know, move on. So the fresher it is, the better for sure.
Dr Rupy: Uh-huh. Would you try and opt for like an independent seller when you go for your spices or a supermarket spice is good enough?
Simon Mills: Well, not necessarily the supermarket spices. You know, you want a reliable brand and you want something that hasn't been sitting on the shelf for six months already. So you probably, to be fair, want to go to someone who's got a fairly high throughput. Yeah. Rather than go to a your little corner shop which has a turmeric that they bought in 2005 or something, you know. You don't you don't want anything that's been sitting around for too long.
Dr Rupy: This is a common issue, I think, because a lot of people will buy turmeric, let's say, and it'll sit at the back of the shelf because particularly if they don't, you know, cook curries or or any sort of foods that have those exotic blends. So if people are thinking about investing in a good quality powdered herb or root, how often, I mean, how often do you change up your spices? I mean, I use them up within a couple of months.
Simon Mills: Yeah, I mean, same, same here. Doesn't apply. Yeah. But no, seriously, we've all got stuff on our, I have stuff in my spice cupboard that frankly, I should keep clearing out because if it's sitting there for a year or more, it's it's almost certainly lost much of its value.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Simon Mills: But again, knows it. You know, if it's got a good fragrance, if it's got that nice clean aroma, it's probably okay, especially the more aromatic ones. But you will be losing benefit over the months.
Dr Rupy: Okay. Okay. In that case, would there be an argument to say, look, go for fresh where possible, even though it's a little bit less convenient, double up the quantities because that's going to be, you know, what you need for the equivalency of a powdered form. And do it that way?
Simon Mills: If you can do that and be prepared to double up on the dose or more, yes. Yeah. Or grate it, you know, into from a root, ginger works, as we know, the fresh ginger is so much better than the dried stuff that we were brought up on.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah.
Simon Mills: And the same with turmeric, but you do need more of it.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. The other thing is the staining in your fingers. Although my mum, she gave me a white turmeric a few months ago. Yeah, which I'd never come across before. Are there differences in the
Simon Mills: Well, I just check with your mum, I mean, we always have to be careful with that, but the thing about curcumin is it's yellow.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Simon Mills: So make sure that the white turmeric isn't curcumin free.
Dr Rupy: Ah, yeah, yeah. That's the thing. That's one of the thoughts I had. I didn't look into white turmeric actually, but it is becoming a lot more popular because of the fact that it doesn't stain your hands. But I wonder if there's a trade-off for the actual potency of the product.
Simon Mills: Yeah, I think I'm wondering about that. I think it's the same thing with garlic preparations, you know, the fact is that it's the smelly bit which is actually the healthy bit. And I think with turmeric, it's the yellow bit which is the bit that everyone understands. I mean, to be fair, everyone's focused on curcumin, but there's scores, literally, of other interesting looking constituents of turmeric which we've barely scratched. So the chances are that even with the curcumin free one, there will be other ingredients. And there's a paper written by an Indian scientist that looked at all the benefits of turmeric which were not due to curcumin.
Dr Rupy: Ah, okay.
Simon Mills: So the prospects are that there are, and this is the thing about plant medicines, which is I like so much, you know, it's not just one chemical. There's a whole bunch of stuff. And we scratch the surface only.
Dr Rupy: In terms of people who are taking a turmeric preparation a day. So let's say, so my my dad grew up on a farm in Punjab and it's a very common drink to have in the morning, powdered turmeric or fresh turmeric with a little bit of clarified butter and either mixed in milk that's freshly prepared and produced that morning, or hot water. And then they drink that every single day and then they go to the fields and work. And just before anyone decides to, you know, try this, you just got to be aware that it's a very different lifestyle. It's not like they're drinking that and sat behind their office desk and typing away. They're going out and ploughing fields. So like having that amount of energy that you're going to get from clarified butter and all the rest of it is going to be rapidly used up in the in the morning.
Simon Mills: It's true, isn't it? That we've got so averse to having fat, whereas our predecessors ate fat in vast quantities, same in this country, you know, everyone ate lard and butter in vast quantities. So, as you say, it's the physical lifestyle. The other thing is, you know, if you've got turmeric shake on your desk, don't for heaven's sake spill it.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, you don't want to be doing that.
Simon Mills: But they they would have this this drink every morning or whatever. And, you know, plenty of benefits and stuff. Um, obviously, obviously some trade-offs. If someone was to try and do a similar drink, let's let's just say turmeric powdered with hot water every single day. Are there particular benefits that they would accrue over 30 or 60 days that they could actually feel in their sort of expectations that you might have?
Simon Mills: More than that. I mean, the what I get most excited about in my practice, I'm a herbal practitioner, is what happens overnight with my remedies. So my standard advice to my patients I've seen for the first time is call me tomorrow. Because I'm not one of those people that says take this for six months and call in, you know, something may happen. I'm looking for short-term changes. And the spices definitely can deliver short-term changes. And it could be simply what happened when you go to the loo next because sometimes they change the the constituents of the stool that comes through. Another thing about turmeric, which is one of its really interesting things for me is that it actually connects with the liver and helps the liver to produce a cleaner, sweeter bile. Now, that's what one of the things the liver does. It's produces bile as part of the helping to digest fats, you know, and also to help with digestion generally. And bile is yellow itself. And sometimes when we're looking at a long-term chronic problem, we can see that the liver is some way involved in this because it's at the centre of almost everything that goes on in the body. And it's showing its unhappiness. It can't eat too many fats, it doesn't like alcohol, there's all sorts of other things you feel slightly nauseous or. The other thing about bile is that it's a laxative. And so someone who's constipated and so on can simply, this is a trick that we know in our trade, you can take all the fibre you like and it's still not working. One of the mechanisms might be that the liver is producing the wrong sort of bile. So you're not having that loosening effect. So if that was the case, you know, they could simply report that the next morning, I went to the toilet for the first time better than I had. And by the way, it was yellow, you know, and and you can immediately see changes happening literally overnight. And the same with things, I mean, I mentioned that these are heating things and they warm you up. Well, that's within seconds. And so if you've got a cold or an a head infection or a chest infection, and you have a mixture of ginger and cinnamon and maybe turmeric as a hot drink with black pepper, take that as a drink when you're feeling cold, you can have an effect within seconds. Seriously. In fact, in seconds. So, no, let's not wait around.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I definitely have a holy tea and that's one of my go-tos whenever I've got like a viral illness or something. And I I definitely feel the effects. On the subject of the bile, I wonder, are there studies looking at the impact of turmeric taken daily and the impact on digestion or the impact on constipation that you're aware of? Or is this mainly from sort of practice over many decades?
Simon Mills: The bile science is pretty bleak. There's not much work going on. It seems to be a latecomer, Cinderella in the party, so to speak. But we know that bile is a major factor in digestive diseases, bowel inflammation, irritable bowel itself can be the wrong sort of bile being irritating. It can if you if you're if the liver is producing the wrong stuff in the bile, it can upset your bowel and make it more crampy, more bloaty. It can be the source of gas and so on. So there's all sorts of ways in which you can point the finger upstream to the bile and the liver. But you know, it's the effect of taking some of the remedies that work at that level and their effect on the gut. That's your answer to the to your question. Can you see an effect? Is do you see that change in the bowel? That's usually good enough for me.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. And I guess you mentioned earlier the the effect of turmeric on the microbes in the gut. And we're we're talking a bit about the microbiota there. Turmeric has a prebiotic effect, right?
Simon Mills: Yes.
Dr Rupy: Can we talk a bit more about what a prebiotic is and what that prebiotic effect actually manifests as?
Simon Mills: This is a really fascinating bit because there are things with confusing names. You have probiotics, you have prebiotics. Probiotics are yoghurts and things that you add living bacteria in the hope that some of it gets through the stomach and onto the other side. And there's a quite a growing bit of evidence. A lot of it is not supported because the stomach's job is to sterilize. So, you know, there's a the struggle for something that's living to be swallowed, but some of it gets through and there is some evidence. So the probiotic is the living thing. You think of it like adding seed to the, if we think of the microbiome as a garden, a living organism, which it is, and it's think of it as like the soil. So you add seed, that's the probiotics, the yoghurts, the fermented foods and the supplements. Prebiotics are the equivalent of the soil itself. You know, they are the, that's the material on which the living organisms in your gut thrive on. And prebiotics essentially are vegetables and cereals, plants. They are the ones that fibre rich plants are your main prebiotics. So root vegetables are well known, some of the seeds, some of the cereals, muesli is full of prebiotics. Turmeric and I mentioned these polyphenols, the the key ingredients in in plants, are themselves prebiotics. And some of the most exciting work on turmeric is its prebiotic effects, and the same with cinnamon and ginger. So they those constituents do seem to feed the microbiome. But here's the really interesting bit, because there's another category. We've talked about probiotics, prebiotics, we now talk about postbiotics. And those are what happens when the microbiome has had its effects. It produces these, we talked about them before, some of these more active constituents. It's an that they're actually a consequence of the microbiome. So they're after digestion, postbiotics. And we understand that polyphenols generally from plants, but also spices, particularly turmeric, are likely to engage in this conversation that goes on down there between our healthy bacteria and our gut wall and the rest of us. And they engage in what we call cross talk between these players. And that is a postbiotic effect. And that's where the smart thinking is now moving. So we've got prebiotics, probiotics, postbiotics. And it looks as though the spices are postbiotics.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, that's super interesting. And it I guess it begs the question to me, in the same way we're seeing how some people can extract more readily the benefits of certain pharmaceuticals if they have a well-functioning gut microbiota, I wonder if the same would be for somebody taking spices. Is a person who has a healthy microbiota, i.e. a rich, diverse selection of bacteria, fungi, nematodes, viruses down there in their gut, are going to have more benefits for taking turmeric versus somebody else who is perhaps dysbiotic?
Simon Mills: That's a really good question. Yeah. There was a paper just published just the other day which looked at the microbiome of hunter gatherers and farmers and Californians. And you wouldn't be too surprised to know that the Californians had the least number diversity of organisms living in their gut. The the Nepalese farmers had about twice as many microbiomes, but the hunter gatherers still living in the very ancient way of living had twice as many again. So we've lost a lot of diversity through simply modern life. Interestingly, the microbiome of the Californians had become adapted to deal with what we call oxidative stress, in other words, inflammation. So it's almost as though our microbiome had changed to adapt to the mad world that we live in. And as I said to my colleague, what we now need is microbiomes to adapt to eat microparticles of plastic. That's what we want. We want our microbiome to be intelligent and to start adapting to save us from all this world. But yeah, loss of diversity is probably one of the most insidious problems we have in the modern world because you're right, the microbiome, the healthy microbiome is the one that's the most diverse. And I had a presentation which is called rewilding our inner garden, which is about looking for ways of making that diversity, increasing that diversity.
Dr Rupy: I love that term, rewilding. Fascinating.
Simon Mills: It's and I I actually put up turmeric as the one of the star players in that because I think that the promise is that an Asian diet with lots of these spices is actually going to build our microbiome against all those consequences. And one of the I'm at a conference here and I'm talking about antibiotic resistance. And we know all the problems about too many antibiotics and so on and losing their effect and so on. But one of the obvious problems with antibiotics is that they deplete your microbiome. So if we can find ways of reducing our need for antibiotics, that's another way of reducing that depletion.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, that burden, absolutely. And I guess we've had a a bunch of infectious disease consultants talking about the negative impact of antimicrobials, not even ones that we're taking, but just consuming as a result of our food system, what we're exposed to.
Simon Mills: The antibiotics that animals get fed and so on, yeah.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, exactly. And our water ways and stuff. So it's kind of scary times, but interesting to know that we can potentially improve the rewilding of our microbiota with with these different spices. And I guess, you know, the last time we talked about a year ago, you were on a mission to add spices to sort of, you know, the eat well plates or the pyramids or whatever they're called around the world these days, as a as a way of increasing people's nutrient density in a cheaper, effective, affordable manner. What where are you on that on the stage of that journey?
Simon Mills: We're just we've been kicking off with the political consultants. We're looking at how to make the changes. We need we're producing what we call a, you know, you hear white papers, which are sort of policy papers. We're producing a rainbow paper, which which actually puts out all the evidence I was talking about. And it's all about metabolic health actually, the evidence. So that's diabetes and other weight and other things seems to be where things are going. And you know, we actually put together a list of some images of meals for less than a pound.
Dr Rupy: All right.
Simon Mills: Which could be transformed by just adding one of the or other of the spices. Make it more tasty, but also likely more healthy as well. So we've sort of putting the pieces together so that it we can begin to persuade people this is A, cheap, and B, effective way of improving what goes on down there.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. And I guess, you know, before people start running out and buying as many different versions of turmeric they can get their hands on, if you just type in turmeric into internet, into Google, on YouTube, whatever, you look at various videos, and you'll see all these different claims, these different benefits about how it's going to improve brain health and erectile dysfunction and kill cancer cells and all the rest of it. Like, as a doctor, that's quite hard for me to promote or get my head around because I think that kind of messaging can have a dangerous side, as I'm sure you can imagine. When you see all these different claims online, what how do you how do you approach it?
Simon Mills: Well, the louder the claim, the further I back away is my my first policy. We were talking about mechanisms before, you know, turmeric does this in the gut, it does this to the circulation. And these are the these are very plausible mechanisms for improving some of the things you've just mentioned. I mean, you know, we talk about dementia now as diabetes three, you know, type three diabetes, because the link between dementia and metabolic problems is increasingly clear. We know that turmeric does get to some of the mechanisms that get to your brain when you're when it's beginning to break down with Alzheimer's or dementia. So there's there's a plausibility there. We know that erectile dysfunction is a circulatory problem. We know that turmeric does get to the small blood vessels. So there's a mechanism there. So none of that is ruled out, but there's that's not the same as saying, I'm going to sell you this supplement for your erectile dysfunction because it's all in the there's lots of steps along the way.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. There are plausible indirect mechanisms that can support some of what people might think around it, but it's it's quite hard to dive into the literature and actually find ratified evidence for some of these practices.
Simon Mills: And it's partly because people aren't looking, can't haven't been paid to look because all these things are very expensive and we can all wish for and do wish for a much more robust research policy which looks at some of the things we've been talking about more closely. But you know, there's not a patent to be got out of turmeric. There might be if you made a nanopharmacological preparation. But turmeric itself is cheap as houses and cheap as chips, shall we say, and no one's going to make a bean by putting millions of pounds into a clinical trial on it unless it's a government policy. So we're always going to be short of good research. So I come back to the fact, you know, people like myself actually see patients and use these things and see changes, sometimes dramatic changes, sometimes overnight, or certainly in the short term. And, you know, for the moment, that's all we can do. But yeah, I avoid the loud claims simply because it's mostly hot air.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. In terms of the the selection of other herbs and spices that we have out there, obviously turmeric's having a moment because it's relatively well researched compared to everything else. There's tons of studies on it, lots of people are excited about the supplement as it relates to cancer prevention, bowel cancer, and and dementia.
Simon Mills: Bowel cancer, by the way, there's there's really is strong pointers and it comes back to what the fact that that's where it's working and also the effect on the bile, which is one of the co-carcinogens in bowel cancer.
Dr Rupy: Got you. Yeah. So are there other herbs or spices that we've sort of like forgotten about that you want to pump up, so to speak?
Simon Mills: Yeah, well, absolutely.
Dr Rupy: Get get people sort of as excited about.
Simon Mills: Let's pump up, yes. Well, ginger always steps up right ahead. The most valuable commodity in human history, weight for weight, has been dried ginger.
Dr Rupy: Really?
Simon Mills: It's one of the reasons why the Brits and the Portuguese and the French and the Spanish all headed off was to find the spices and ginger being the top one. And, you know, I think I told you this last year, but it was made extinct in the wild 2,000 years ago. So all the ginger we've had ever since has had to be grown from root stock because it doesn't seed itself anymore. That is because even 2,000 years ago, people realized how valuable it was and they just plundered it. So ginger is right up there at the top of the tree in terms of just a wow factor. And it's hot and it gets the circulation going and fight helps you to fight viral things simply because of that. And my favourite, as I said earlier, my favourite remedy for a common cold is ginger with cinnamon as a tea. Hit straight away, no instantly. Which leads us on to cinnamon, which is the other big fella and a lot of work on metabolism, on blood sugar and all those other things coming in. A couple of ones hiding in the shadows. My personal favourite is cardamom. It's in the same category, it's a warming spice, but it's traditionally used particularly for when you're feeling run down in here, in in your digestion. You've been ill for a while, you're fatigued, you need a bit of building. Cardamom just piles in the warmth and the support. And it does all the sort of thing, I'm pretty sure it does what we've been saying about turmeric as well. It works on the microbiome. So, you know, plug for cardamom. Nigella, the black seed, is one that is used in Arabic cultures a lot. You see that in food. That has a lot of evidence actually to show effects on inflammation, on circulation and so on. Saffron, very valuable, of course, and expensive, but you don't need much of it. Another yellow in your meal. Quite a lot of evidence show for that too.
Dr Rupy: Nigella seed, I use a lot actually in cooking. Wonderful flavour, aromatic, not too spicy for people who
Simon Mills: But hardly anyone knows about it.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. It's a sort of it's a sort of flavour that people can't put their finger on, but they recognize and they're like, there's something about this dish or preparation or whatever it is that is nice. It's almost sweet, but it's, yeah, it's not many people know how to use it.
Simon Mills: Let's have a Nigella campaign.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah.
Simon Mills: It's got a nice name. We've got a nice chef to front that one.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Simon Mills: So that's and fenugreek I mentioned earlier, which is not so much a spice, it's almost a food, but it's again, it's got spice qualities, it's got that flavour, isn't it? So that's up there. Cumin, again, Middle Eastern, Persian, India also widely used. I love that flavour, but also is stepping up to be quite a powerful remedy. You know, I think if you just look at the spice cupboard, you're going to find potential almost anywhere there.
Dr Rupy: Are there particular spices that you use for people who experience bloating? I mean, obviously, there are plenty of different reasons as to why people might experience bloating, digestive discomfort, you know, ranging from the severe and the red flags of, you know, growths and and inflammatory disorders down to, you know, you've eaten too fast or you've been eating and walking. People don't realize that they don't chew their food properly, you know, sometimes it's very, yeah, swallowing air and all like, you know, eating disturbed and like, you know, watching TV and stuff, which I'm guilty of as well sometimes. Are there certain preparations with herbs or spices that you use for for those common complaints?
Simon Mills: Well, one of the ones we haven't mentioned already, one of the ones that is particularly used for colic and gas and so on in the gut is fennel.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Simon Mills: And indeed in China, they use high doses of fennel for quite severe gut problems. And it's you need to be careful about having it too much too because there's some downsides of having a lot of fennel too often and too much, but you know, for average consumption, go for it.
Dr Rupy: What what's the downside of it?
Simon Mills: It's got a carcinogen in it, which, you know, people have tut-tutted about various regulatory agencies that it's one that's quite commonly encountered in food, estragole, but it's you need a lot of fennel for a lot of time. So we're slightly cautious about saying taking bucket loads of it, but in the ordinary everyday consumption, no one's going to limit your use of it in cooking and so on.
Dr Rupy: So like one teaspoon a day is fine.
Simon Mills: And certainly for short term, if you've got a bloating, just if, you know, you can buy a fennel tea bag, I, you know, obviously mentioned Pukka, but there are other brands available. Make a tea, not one, try with one, see if that feels good, because whenever you're trying a herb or spice or a tea, no one can tell you what how good it's going to be until you've tried it yourself, because everyone is different. So try the fennel, if it feels good with one tea bag, leave it in for 15 minutes, by the way, because you really want to draw out the goodness. But then if one feels okay, then put two.
Dr Rupy: 15 minutes.
Simon Mills: Yeah, at least, because you want to draw out the goodness.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Simon Mills: But then if one feels okay, then put two.
Dr Rupy: Uh-huh.
Simon Mills: I'm waiting for Pukka to say, yeah, add three. But you might need to build up the dose a bit.
Dr Rupy: Could you just use fennel seeds, crush them in a pestle and mortar and add them?
Simon Mills: Yeah, and yeah, if you've got the seeds, use a little mortar pestle thing, just so you bruise them a bit. If you don't have one of those, just roll with a rolling pin or bash them with a spoon, just so you crack the seeds a bit, just so that it gets the goodness out of them.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Simon Mills: We talked about individual differences. I mean, we haven't mentioned chili, which of course is not Asian, it's North American. And interestingly, it was Columbus who thought he was taking a shortcut to the spice islands and bumped into America and saw another spice that they hadn't found before, cayenne, chili. And people vary, you know, they're this is a marmite, isn't it? Some people like it, some people really can't take it. And often it's the stomach that says, don't want this. And if you're what you if you know you're one of those, don't go there. But if you can take a bit of chili, if you like a bit of cayenne, or paprika, which is the gentler form, that can really make a difference to gas and bloating.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. Oh, right.
Simon Mills: But again, it depends on whether it suits you or not.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. Oh, I haven't heard of that one. I I know what you mean, like we've got a number of recipes on our app that have cayenne pepper in. Some people absolutely love it. Other people can't even take a half teaspoon of it, you know, and for a serving of three or four people. And we we get some messages like, oh, I use the cayenne, it's way too much.
Simon Mills: No, when I'm talking with patients, I say, do you like spices? And they'll say no, it's too and I say, but no, not chili, I meant, I meant the other ones, the more aromatic, the softer ones. And they will agree that even a bit of ginger is fine. It's it's chili that they mean when they talk about the spice.
Dr Rupy: What about some of the softer ones like rosemary and sage and basil?
Simon Mills: The herbals, yeah.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, the herbals, yeah.
Simon Mills: Yes. Well, they're interesting. There's much less evidence for them. Rosemary is one that's sort of standing up a bit. And remember Shakespeare said rosemary for remembrance. That's he had Ophelia say that in Hamlet. And that was reflecting a long tradition of everyone knowing that it went to your brain because all you have to do is smell it for heaven's sake. You know, you just crush a leaf and the, you know, the the oil, the aroma gets seems to go straight to your head. And there's evidence to show that's exactly what it does. So it's a very promising remedy for cognitive problems. And we've actually, I was involved, I set up a clinical trial looking at rosemary for cognitive in elderly people in in the USA.
Dr Rupy: Oh, wow.
Simon Mills: And it was a it was a few methodological problems. We didn't quite get the dosing right, but there was quite a trend that people performed better on their sort of high speed tests and so on with taking the rosemary than not. And there's more support of that coming in. So we can think of rosemary for the for the brain. In Eastern Asia, sorry, Eastern Europe, they use it for the liver. And there's quite good reasons to think that too. And, you know, increasingly I use it when there is sort of some circulatory inflammatory issues. It seems to be quite a promising one. So rosemary definitely. Thyme, we usually think of most for coughs and reducing tight children particularly, coughs, very good for that. Again, another digestive remedy, but the evidence again a bit scanty, very scanty. Sage, we think of for the throat and sometimes women find it helpful going through the change.
Dr Rupy: Oh, okay. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Simon Mills: And in terms of the preparation for those, in my head, I'm thinking of the easiest way, which is get some hot water and dunk in your your leaves or your stalks or whatever, swish them around for a few minutes and then drink them.
Dr Rupy: More than a few minutes.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, more than a few minutes. Is that is that
Simon Mills: And chop them up finely as well.
Dr Rupy: Okay, chop them up finely.
Simon Mills: Yeah, because you want to get the stuff out from the leaf, don't you? So if you put a whole branch in there, it's not going to get it. So you chop it up finely and you soak it for a while.
Dr Rupy: And how much are we talking? A couple of stalks or
Simon Mills: Well, the old fashioned approach used to be an ounce of in the old old language, an ounce of dried herbs to a pint of hot water.
Dr Rupy: An ounce of dried herbs to a pint. So that's
Simon Mills: An ounce sounds like quite a bit.
Dr Rupy: That's quite a bit.
Simon Mills: Yeah, that is. And we sometimes refer to that as a heroic dose. Because you're meant to eat that in a day.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay.
Simon Mills: Yeah, I know. That's what we when you really want the health benefits to shine through.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Simon Mills: It's a good point, you know, in the old days, we didn't have ambulances and hospitals and men in white coats or women in white coats or dungarees rushing around taking your temperature. You had you were on your own in a farmhouse somewhere and you got ill, you needed to fix it. Otherwise you weren't going to get through. So heroic doses are what you needed to move from today to tomorrow. So those are the heroic doses, an ounce to a pint per day. So, yeah. So back down from there.
Dr Rupy: So we've got a few sort of tips for people who are having bloating issues with fennel and the like. If I'm trying to create a tincture to take before I do a podcast, let's say, and I want to make sure that I'm on top of my game and I'm firing on all cylinders and I'm cognitively aware, rosemary sounds like a go-to.
Simon Mills: Put that in there.
Dr Rupy: Anything else that you
Simon Mills: Well, obviously, if you can find a space in a tincture without staining it, put the turmeric in. If you're feeling at all under the weather, you know, tired, knackered, cardamom I would always put in there. It makes it taste nicer as well.
Dr Rupy: I think you should start a product that's got all this stuff in.
Simon Mills: And we should shout from the rooftops, it's going to cure this, that and the other and completely deny everything we've just been saying.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that sounds great. I'm going to I'm going to try my hand at creating some rosemary based tinctures.
Simon Mills: But seriously, Ruby, the the thing about all of this is that it is at hand. Anyone can do this for very little money. You don't you can gather your rosemary just by walking through any park, you can find rosemary there. These things are cheap. You can do them yourself, like everybody did in the old days. You don't need to pay shedloads on the subs.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. It reminds me, I I was walking back from the supermarket just a few weeks ago actually, and I'd bought a bunch of herbs. One of them was rosemary. And I walked back through the park and there was a rosemary bush that I found. And I literally paid like 80p for like the small bag of rosemary.
Simon Mills: You could have just actually
Dr Rupy: I could have just actually
Simon Mills: Well, don't let the park keeper see you, but yeah.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Simon Mills: And remember when you're near the floor.
Dr Rupy: Near the floor.
Simon Mills: I was going to say the dog effect.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah.
Simon Mills: Yeah, above dog height.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. This has been brilliant. Look, I I love your work. I love the campaign that you're putting together to get more herbs and spices into people's diet. I think it's a really important oversight that we've had on on improving the nutrient density of of meals. Um, so yeah, like I I look forward to having more of these chats in the future where hopefully we can catch up on on where you're up with that.
Simon Mills: Well, as I usually say, why am I doing this? It actually makes everything more fun. It makes food more fun, it certainly makes health care more fun.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Good stuff.
Simon Mills: Thank you.
Dr Rupy: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Doctor's Kitchen podcast. Remember, you can support the pod by rating on Apple, follow along by hitting the subscribe button on Spotify, and you can catch all of our podcasts on YouTube if you enjoy seeing our smiley faces. Review show notes on thedoctorskitchen.com website and sign up to our free weekly newsletters where we do deep dives into ingredients, the latest nutrition news, and of course, lots of recipes by subscribing to the Eat, Listen, Read newsletter by going to thedoctorskitchen.com/newsletter. And if you're looking to take your health further, why not download The Doctor's Kitchen app for free from the App Store. I will see you here next time.
