Food & Metabolomics: How Your Diet—Starting in Childhood—Shapes Your Brain | Dr. Alexis Wood

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 00:00

Alzheimer's doesn't start with memory loss. It starts silently, decades earlier, in places you'd never expect. Today's guest might completely change how you think about your brain, your food and your future. Dr Alexis Wood is a leading researcher at Baylor College of Medicine. She studies how your genetics and your diet interact to shape your brain from the moment you're born to the moment it starts to fade. We're diving into some big questions today. What is it that we know about childhood nutrition? Can we affect ADHD just by nutrition alone? What role does the current science information landscape have to tell us about how we can feed our children? This conversation doesn't just focus on what's going wrong. It's about what you can do to protect yourself and your loved ones, what to eat, what to look for, and how to fight back. Because the earlier you understand this, the better the chance you have of changing your brain's future, and it starts with changing our children's present.

Where are we in the landscape of childhood nutrition and genetics? I want to really hear and focus in on the research that you're doing and the questions that you're asking. Okay,

Dr. Alexis Wood: 01:25

so I think we have basically nothing in children, in Child Nutrition and genetics, a tool bringing those together. I would say that even in Child Nutrition, it has been overlooked, in fact, the history so you know, every five years, as you well know, the USDA

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 01:45

Can't wait for some major changes, right? Your loss is still waiting. I'm sure talked about it. Still waiting

Dr. Alexis Wood: 01:52

Produces the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which changes slightly each iteration, how the purpose is stated, but it's essentially how to make dietary choices that will keep you healthy or reduce your risk of chronic disease. And it was only in the last iteration, they included advice I know, for two to three year olds, you know, and if you read it, I understand no one wants to read right in the weeds. They're very honest, very transparent, and they spell it out, we had no research on foods and their effects on cognitive and social health. You know, anthropometrics, fat, height, weight, we've got. I mean, we need more, but we're there. This piece, we had nothing. So we're sort of inferring from other populations, and we don't even have great things there. So it's really a black hole I feel for children, and I feel confident saying that, because when I speak to people at the USDA, they agree, you know, they're very excited by the idea of creating a cohort of children that we can study the effects of diet on more social, cognitive developmental outcomes. So that's a black hole, and we're doing everything from what we know in adults, and I think we actually know a lot in the science field as adults, but now as scientists, we're up against the wider world and how people interpret it, what they choose to make into a news story and so on. And that's bringing a lot of issues to our door. That feels a bit like a step back.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 03:24

Do you think that it's always been that way? And when I say always been that way, meaning issues to your door, because there is more information out there than ever before. I think we are all struggling with what to trust, what not to trust, who to trust, how to understand the science, and then also children. Again, there is nothing, I mean, even for protein recommendations, we don't really know. For kids, we don't biopsy kids. How do you see your work helping, and what is it that you're working on now, specifically?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 04:00

So, I've started a study. So we won't be analyzing the data. We won't be drawing conclusions, but we are looking at establishing a longitudinal cohort of children from 12 months, assessing their diet, taking blood samples to look at both biomarkers of dietary intake because it's so hard to assess diet in everyone, children. Add another layer, right?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 04:22

You mean they don't listen, and they're not going to do food frequently questionnaires?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 04:26

They’re not going to tell you what they're eating, you know. And parents, you know, may not be with their child all the time. They they may be divorced, they may have daycare, they may go to a friend's house. So capturing is challenging. So we're looking at some biomarkers in the blood, but we also want to use the blood to try to capture when that food is being digested and processed and absorbed. How does it change the body in that then we take those changes and say, Can we look at what those might do for health now and long term?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 04:55

That's fascinating. Are you able to share any of the biomarkers or meaningful metabolites?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 05:00

No so we haven't done anything in kids yet. We did find that red meat was associated with an anti inflammatory metabolite. Most of that actually was, this was in adults. Was actually confounded by the association at a population level of eating red meat and high BMI, which is not to say that eating red meat leads to high BMI. It's just there are conflated. And we did find an unknown molecule associated with avocado intake too. Oh, really. And we tracked the effects of those molecules on health outcomes, which was really interesting.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 05:34

Where do you think the landscape is right now for kids? So the information, yeah, the information that you know, I know that you feel very passionately about childhood nutrition and brain function, I'm assuming all of these things.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 05:47

Yes, so scientifically, I think it's an emerging field, okay? I think for parents, I don't think they know that. I think a lot of even scientists, were shocked like the when the USDA produced their guidelines, they pull a lot of experts together to do the literature review. And I've had anecdotally from people in the room that people were like, I didn't have any you didn't What do you mean? They're like, who? Go get them. Go find them. Yeah, they're not there. So that was very surprising to scientists, maybe even more shocking to parents, right? And caregivers of children, and in terms of the landscape, I think the good thing is, we have a lot of parents now, at least I meet, and I think I see out there that are very interested in the importance of nutrition for children, that believe it has health effects, and it can help them now and help their developmental trajectory, and that is a wonderful place to start, because I feel like from the point of view of chronic disease, 30 years ago, I'm drawing a random decade, it was an uphill battle to persuade people and even some clinicians that what you eat could affect your diabetes risk and so on. I totally agree. So, we're starting from a better place. I think that the flip side is it's overwhelming and confusing.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 07:15

I couldn't agree with you more, and probably more so now than ever, with the increase in Tiktok and media and the damage that can potentially do, which I think is really profound. You studied ADHD right hyperactivity disorder. Are we seeing more of that now? And do you think that there is a genetic versus an environmental influence?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 07:39

Great, so we are seeing more numbers of diagnosed cases. I find it hard to believe we are seeing a change in the children's presentation of the behavior. I do believe it's very possible that as expectations as school landscapes change, school expectations, setups, classrooms and so on. The behavioral response is one that is labeled attention deficit hyperactivity, and it's actually to me, ADHD is a diagnosis of certain behaviors, and then impairment is a key part. And if it's impairing, yes, then it's there. I'm not, sort of super interested in a debate of, is this real or not? So we are seeing more cases. It's definitely has strong genetic elements. I did a lot of heritability studies.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 08:33

Yeah, I know there's a I think you worked also with twins.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 08:38

With twins, we used monozygotic NZ and dizygotic dz twins who have different amounts of genetic sharing, but they each within a twin pair, the two show the same amount of their common environment, give or take, we were able to use just that information so no actual genes or genetic variants to take traits and take the overlap between behaviors and say how much of this is genetic and environment. And ADHD came out as one of the most heritable traits. I think there's some mathematical issues in there, but it is heritable, and I think it's also one of the childhood conditions. We have found the most robust evidence for which genes are playing into it tiny portion, but that makes me feel even more confident there's a genetic element.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 09:20

What about the nutrition aspect? In terms of ADHD, there's a lot of information out there that, for example, as a parent listening, and I've heard parents at my children's school say, I don't want to let my child have, I don't know, Gatorade because of the red dye or various food additives.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 09:42

Have you heard those? I have heard those. I hear those. I'm lucky enough that people trust me to ask questions when I meet them in my daily life, right? So that's super lucky. And I actually had someone text me and say, hey, my kid has ADHD. The medication is not working. I. My son has ADHD, he also has lactose intolerance. And that parent had put those two together and said, is it, do you have him off lactose? Because she knows when she's kind enough to bring treats into class. Sam's dairy free. Do you keep him off dairy because of his ADHD? And I was like, No, that is actually a very separate issue, so I'm very aware of those feel strongly. Scientists are interested in that they can see a mechanism for that, a rationale for thinking that I've never known a study get very far with showing that, I think we have failed to find evidence that diet can significantly impact symptoms of ADHD.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 10:43

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Dr. Alexis Wood: 11:55

That being said, I don't want to take away. I do hear parents say, Well, I took my child off this and they are doing fabulously, and I'm very respectful of that. And if you could do that and that works for you, I'm not going to say that's wrong. I'm not going to say you didn't get that right. I will say, at a population level, if we wanted to shift that diagnostic percentage we're at, or we wanted to shift the classroom environment, we have failed to find evidence that changing diet will do that.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 12:23

Do you think that we've looked Do you think that we have good enough clinical evidence? Have we been able to look at it in a meaningful way, potentially?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 12:32

I think it's…no, I don't think we have. I think we've struggled to do it in adults. I think we have to, yeah, we have to also remember, adults have been studied much, much longer. Much of the criticism about how we've devised our evidence was done on studies in adults. We also have to remember that ADHD is relatively new. An interest in children, and understanding that what happens in childhood may impact outcomes is also relatively new.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 13:03

What do you mean? What happens in childhood?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 13:07

Well, I think,I think there was a sort of sense not necessary. I mean, obviously not among pediatricians and pediatric scientists, but child is sort of a discrete category, right? And we didn't assess the diet. You know, they just need to eat healthily and grow and it'll be fine. And you know, they're not getting diabetes, they're not getting heart disease. It's not so important. And in fact, in the UK, Kate Middleton picked this up as her interest and had a campaign for a focus on the early years and a focus on the importance of those which arose out of a concern that the country, as she saw it, was not focusing on those important years. So I think it's safe to say it has been overlooked. So there is a lot of potential to find things, find exciting things, really figure out how to help kids.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 13:56

When you're looking at nutrition in your lab and nutrition genetics, what are some so you had mentioned that you were working on the study now looking at metabolites in children. Yes, you will be. Are there certain diets that you believe or feel that there's enough evidence for that we can say, Okay, this is a good choice for kids,

Dr. Alexis Wood: 14:18

If you're prepared to make the leap that we can generalize from adults to children, which I think is reasonable, except that we don't study brain development in adults right at the end, we might just study the decline. So that is a, to me, huge, okay. It's pretty consistent across the literature that a Mediterranean diet does well.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 14:39

And how would you define Mediterranean diet?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 14:43

Oh,my goodness. I'm going to go back to my coding of how I code it. So we are going to say high in pulses and whole grains, high in low-fat dairy, high in white meat, fish, fruits and vegetables. Moderate in alcohol, which I don't think, sadly for me, is going to stick. That is not that is, we've pretty much unpicked that, but I find it interesting that that never really made the headlines from the scientists or the media. Like, I don't really like that. Yeah, I would not advise alcohol. I do drink alcohol, so fair play. I think that will go into the No. No into added sugars.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 15:26

So, really Whole Foods. Nothing crazy, yeah, it seems

Dr. Alexis Wood: 15:32

it's, I think, the focus of the Mediterranean diet, which we do not assess well in our studies, from the tools we use, was the olive oil and the fats and the oils. And we have really not been able to look at that well, except in one intervention as a whole. I mean, there are some smaller randomized, controlled trials. So, under that caveat, I sort of look at it and I'm like, yeah. I mean, if I take someone with just sort of a little bit of interest and say, Well, the best diet is high in fish and white meat and pulses and whole grains of fruits and vegetables, they'll be like, Well, tell me something I don't know, right? And I'm like, it might be that simple. It's very hard to do for multiple reasons, but that might be 90% of your variance in what nutrition can do for an adult across your lifespan if you're not a bodybuilder or an athlete or facing a condition.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 16:25

I think it's an interesting thought in terms of the Mediterranean diet, because I've seen different Mediterranean style diets, and we know that in terms of, for example, iron deficiency in in children young adults, you know that that certainly is of concern. And I know that the iron content in, say, white meat is a bit lower than red meat.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 16:49

And I really don't think any of our studies in which we can really draw these conclusions have got at put a little bit on my soapbox, the immense amount of privilege that goes absolutely into being able to choose a diet like that, to choose, yes, obtain, consume and stop, I mean, all of that. And it really bothers me sometimes when I, you know, talk to people and I see people feel like I'm failing my child because I can't do this. And I'm like, I mean, come on, you're not failing there's multiple other things. You're doing an amazing job to be here asking these questions. And so the study I mentioned one of my second metabolomic study really looking at the effects I got into because I said I have, it just doesn't make sense to me that we demonize red meat and we continue to do it now. We just continue to do it, and

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 17:48

it's such a privilege to have it right other countries and also, though, for some people,

Dr. Alexis Wood: 17:55

some forms of unprocessed meat can be affordable. They're palatable. Yeah, they don't know. Everyone gets to I didn't like my dinner. I get another one, you know? Yeah, and I'll tell you a story. I presented the findings. I went to the American Society nutrition two years ago, and I presented the study. And I said, basically, we didn't what was the study? The study was to use just self reported red meat intake, divided into unprocessed and processed red meat, quantify their intake, identify biomarkers in the blood that correlated with that, and see what the health effects of those might be. And it was to look at whether red meat increased inflammation, which is a risk for cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 18:41

Is the metabolite the metabolites link intake of a healthy diet. Is that the one to better?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 18:46

No, that's the miles one. It's a red meat in metabolomics study of red meat, untargeted metabolic study of red meat intake, something like that. In American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2024. Okay, and essentially, I went into it because I was like, this should be a pretty healthy food, like, all things in moderation, right? And I don't see the evidence we see in every medical studies playing out in controlled trials. Now, that might happen for various reasons. So let's take a look. Let's take a look, sort of fascinating. Like, imagine eating like the way we assess it, we get some idea of the fat content and so on. Like, fairly low fat, unprocessed protein and the rates, the amount people were consuming, these are slightly old data was not super high. When I have any, like, seven steaks for breakfast, imagine showing that like really affect your health. I'd be surprised. Let's look into this. And we didn't find any association. We didn't, we didn't, never even go into analyses to say it was healthy. We just said we did not find this association with increased inflammation. And we can tell you why, because we did some extra other studies, some studies might. And I presented it at the ASN, and I'm like, and it was a bloodbath. That is the only word I can use. The audience got so angry at me. Someone stood up and criticized it for being a cross-sectional study, which is very fair, but all the other studies that session had been cross sectional. Wow. Someone else just said all this stuff and finished with, I'm going to dedicate my career to proving you wrong. And I was like, you’re not very happy.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 20:25

Where does that come from?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 20:26

I think that brought home to me the effect of misinformation, the bias, and how it may not, even when I'm day to day being a scientist, just be out there is like, Okay, we should communicate more. We have a duty. We are funded by taxes to communicate more, but I do see my job as largely producing these results that are here. And so it was like, okay, the misinformation is causing problems down the line. And I was like, wow, it's like, it's it's around me, it's pervasive. It was really shocking. But then I was getting around to is the the moderator actually helped me out and cooled it off. And was like, we're gonna, we're just gonna move on. You were surprised. I was like, what I am so unprepared, like I had no concept.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 21:13

And this is an academic meeting. This is ASN

Dr. Alexis Wood: 21:17

it is. I mean, I can't, not everyone is 100% but for the most, way you're going.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 21:22

Experimental Biology and ASN combined, right?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 21:27

It was, it was, yes. And so I had people come up after me and really thank me for sharing that first reasons and one that stuck with me. Sadly, I was getting in a cab for dinner, so I couldn't talk to she said, I'm a dietitian, and I have a lot of people come through my practice. The best recommendation I can give them for what they will do and what is achievable for them is to increase their red meat. And I'm not allowed to say it.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 21:50

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Dr. Alexis Wood: 22:55

And I need this research. Would it be my top food if I could pick any food, not necessarily, who knows. But for these people, they can do that, and I can't. And so, I can’t remember how we got back round to like, what do we know?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 23:10

Or, yeah, you know foods that you think are valuable for people, what we actually know? What is the best diet for individuals?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 23:18

And oh, you put up the like, white meat already

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 23:22

We have not, because we really did. And again, I at the end of the day, I don't care what people eat. I care that they're healthy. There's a million different ways to get there. Wait, but it if we are going to push in one direction and push a narrative that says, go more plant based, then we have to have science to back that up. And we don't have that right. And what I think that the science if, if I felt comfortable saying what a recommendation would be, that would be a diet of both fruits and vegetables. We are not consuming enough fruits and vegetables. The RDA for protein is very low. We need more nutrient dense foods. The RDA is probably even the wrong number, right? It's probably an irrelevant number. And unfortunately, because of media, we are confused as a country, as a world, and so that's why I think it's important, and that's actually why I started the podcast, is I wanted to have transparent conversations, right? And we need scientists like you, who you're a career scientist, and you're getting up in front of ASN, which is, you know, yeah, some maybe non scientists, but the majority of them are academic, right? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And that's to move into a landscape where there are a good scientist has knows their bias, right, and they can put that aside to answer a question.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 24:39

And, you know, I'm also a good scientist, should know one study does not a recommendation make - right? Like it was one study to say, Hey, I think I might be just saying this. We gotta replicate. We'd have to do a trial. We'd have to all this stuff multiple times. And to see that response is pretty shocking.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 24:58

Yeah, did that? Did that change? The way you thought about doing research in the future. I mean, it had to be kind of in the back your mind, like, oh, do I want to Well, I mean, you're pretty you're pretty strong personality. So maybe you were like, You know what? I'm gonna do more on that.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 25:11

It pretty much did - I got a little angry. Yeah. And again, you know, I can step back and say, You don't need to get angry at individuals. Maybe I can channel this feeling into productive science. But I, you know, I would talk to people, and I talked to the Cattleman’s Association, who will fund research if it's good and they're quite unbiased. I know how to extend this. We gotta, we gotta do it again, like, I'm interested. It did make me, like, a little like, it's hard not to take it also personally when you go up in good faith and just say, I am reporting data, and people are like, and you're like, I mean, I didn't, I didn't even generate the data I use someone else's.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 25:49

Yeah, happens all, but it happens. People get very angry. You know, we did an episode talking about cycle syncing, and the data behind that, and whether someone wants to train around their menstrual cycles is total. I can appreciate feeling more fatigue all of these things, but we don't have the data to say that that is what is necessary. And maybe eventually we will, but we don't at that time and so, and I think it was important.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 26:16

great what you said, if people want to change around them, and I heard you say that in some of your clips, and, you know, so I used to be a bodybuilder.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 26:26

We're now just new best friends. That’s it.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 26:29

I was going to compete when I got pregnant with my son wanted, but was quick, so great, I mean, by design, and so I was going to compete pregnant. I thought that'd be really cool. Don't have to win, or just the experience. But I couldn't keep protein down. I was vomiting, so I didn't lift. And then I now do it. I now do it recreationally. I prioritize other things more than I would like to than heavy lifting. But I looked at like the menstrual cycle and the training, because if I'm really limited in my abilities, and I was like, ah, the data are not there. And I was like, but you know what? Right before I am a little feel, I definitely have lower ability a number of reps I can do, because I track it religiously right around my cycle. There's no day to day that's any different, right? You should always if, in the style of lifting, I do go to failure pretty much have your rest, do you rep? And then if you can do more, you're not doing it, right? So and so I was like, You know what? Though I'm kind of tired, and right before, I don't really want to push myself back, and that's fine, right, right? There's a very as a good choice to make, right? So, decoupling that need for data to say something we want, we don't have to. We can want and recognize other constraints or other pressures or other drivers of our lifestyle, and say, you know, I'm going into that I feel tired. Yeah, and it doesn't have to be data driven. There's a problem that we feel like now, it has to get it sooner, right?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 28:08

No, I think that that's right on.

Your work on brain function. So, there was one, you know, you've actually published quite a bit, but this one study, this was an obesity this was Obesity Society, cognitive performance and BMI in childhood, the shared genetic influences between reaction time but not response inhibition. Can you share a little bit about this study? And I can just provide a background, is that this study provides, this was the first direct evidence of shared genetic factors between slower reaction time and higher BMI in children.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 28:39

Okay, yeah. And the great thing is, we replicated that study in an independent sample. So, you know, so we do see that cognitive abilities associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. So, I think the best way to explain it, that's also scientific, is challenges with self-regulation. You know, my PhD did a lot of looking at how cognitive self-regulation actually gave rise to what we see as hyperactivity impulsivity, and people at the center at the time were pushing forward research that has really stood the test of time, that children with ADHD don't necessarily have a lower performance, it's just much more variable. And so, we have this concept of self-regulation and cognitive regulation. How you regulate your attention? How consistently can you pay attention? Can you plan? Can you organize those sorts of facets of cognition? And we do find that children with obesity also have lower scores in those and I was fascinated, why? What can we show this and demonstrate it, and then what does that mean, either for the etiology of obesity, maybe they're having trouble self-regulating their food intake, or maybe it's a consequence of obesity, in which case, perhaps they're a population we. And give more support to maybe it's both, probably both right? But the problem is correlating those two even longitudinally, you cannot dramatically increase a child to obesity and see what happens their cognitive development. There's not a lot we have learned how to do to meaningfully and stably change people's cognitive self-regulation yet.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 30:20

And that's and that is largely genetic, or is it?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 30:25

Probably you have a good genetic potential, but the environment can be huge. I always tell people that one of the most heritable child cognitive abilities is reading ability. Bring a child up without books they're not going to be able to read. So you can knock that right out the water with the the environment, right? Now that’s extreme. But so, you know, I really wanted to look at because the correlation between those abilities and increased BMI words and invest correlation, right? Lower abilities, high BMI, the

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 30:58

lower cognitive abilities, yeah, they're lower ability to self regulate, yeah. So, you know, I that was a project that I worked on in my postdoc. Oh, really, yeah. We never ended up, we never ended up publishing it, but we looked at body composition, brain function under fMRI, there you go. We saw the higher the BMI, and actually, the higher the waistline, the lower the brain volume, and the lower the cognitive restraints and various markers from like the Stroop test, things like that.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 31:26

And I think that is a beautiful example of what I was trying to do, too, which is, okay, we see an association, or inverse association. Can we provide a little bit harder evidence, right, that it's not just they didn't test so well or and so you use brain imaging. I didn't have that option. I used genetics. If I can find genes driving these together.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 31:47

I mean, that's pretty together, probably even more valuable, obviously, or the combination of all of it.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 31:53

So that's what we found, is that this association, these two domains, the BMI, that might call that the physical domain and the mental domain. The cognitive domain shared genetics, and what I took from that is they really are interlinked. They are meaningful for each other. It's not an artifact.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 32:11

And this is the the meaningful relationship is BMI, and is it fair to say cognitive performance?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 32:19

Yes,yes. That would be very accurate on specific tests that we give, and so the reaction time is just the precise metric of a broader self-regulation test given to the children.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 32:30

Also, there was one finding here, again, this may have been in the discussion that this might help explain why disorders like ADHD are linked to obesity. Is that true?

Dr. Alexis Wood

It is true.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Hm. Which would, is there a, you know, it's interesting. Is it a bidirectional relationship? Does ADHD? So would 80? Would obesity drive ADHD and vice versa?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 32:54

My understanding, we've never studied that specifically, is that obesity can impact behavior in the ADHD direction. It can, you know, lower suffering. I don't think it could push it over the threshold. It does seem that ADHD can push over into the threshold of obesity, which I think is probably linked to it accruing over time. But there's really interesting study designs that provide strong evidence that ADHD increases the risk for obesity,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 33:24

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Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

How young is then, too young to think about brain health?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 34:50

Never too young. Before conception is not too young.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 34:56

I think that's, that's that's right on. And then what about. This idea of reversal of cognitive decline, or watching cognitive decline throughout the life through lifestyle changes. Do you think that there is an influence there?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 35:09

Um, I think we would like there to be. We are keen to study and find out if that can be done. We haven't shown that yet. I do think there is enough to say that lifestyle changes could certainly delay onset. It could certainly, if there is onset in a healthier body, which can get a lot more things functioning better, I think what we're talking about here is I think diet and lifestyle maybe could prevent cognitive decline. Once that process is starting? I'm not sure we know, but I think we I see no reason to say we can't slow it. I really, I really don't. And you know what is actually cognitive decline versus, you know, at the brain level, versus someone functioning in the real world? They're actually quite different, right?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 36:01

Yeah. What do you mean by that? That's fascinating.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 36:05

Coordination not falling, right? Like, let's say you said to me, Well, we have looked and we can actually trace that Alzheimer's. We are tracing right, the biomarkers in the brain that accumulate, like tau and so on, but cognitive decline, if we could map it physiologically, and I can tell you that exercise doesn't change those I would say, but it can do something else. It can give you social support, it can give you structure. It can increase your function, right? It can give you coordination. It can prevent falls. It can prevent fail t like frailty, sorry. So I think it's a little simplistic to say it has to operate almost at the disease level to say it's not going to help and enhance the lives of people that we're we're trying to help and improve. Maybe the cognitive maybe you can't reverse the biology of cognitive decline. I think there's a good chance you can. But if you can't, I wouldn't give up on lifestyle yet.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 36:56

Yeah, of course not, because then you are just doing nothing. You're letting life happen to you. And we know when health is not maintained, or at least there's not attention to it, then we know where that that goes. Yeah, you look at groups, so you do the research, you don't do clinical practice, right? And I think it's important to, I don't know, mention that individuals that are interpreting the science, say, someone who is a science communicator or an influencer or something like that, might take a study and say, Okay, well, this is what this study showed, and then this is how we can apply it. I, do you want to just mention a little bit about how we can think about studies and then the interpretation of of data and how that can direct or not direct or influence our choices?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 37:54

Sure, I think the biggest take home is if you're reading science communication being, never go off one study ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, okay? I can show you studies that say smoking does not cause lung cancer now, for all sorts of reasons, the one being that one of the reasons we study a lot of people and we have probability statistics is you can get the wrong finding by chance right. So, when you think about that, that I could show you, that, you know, I could show you, as you know, probably studies to say, parenting doesn't matter, which just common sense. We're not gonna go there. Don't ever go off one study. And that's where I think we go wrong. You really need, and it's, I'm not saying people have the time to go out and do this. It's a body of evidence, and there will be it leaning in one direction, but I can tell you that even some of the most strong findings we have, every so often a scientist is like, I'm gonna see if I can repeat it wrong. Yeah, like, and it's harder to get that fund. We don't want lots of just repetitive stuff, but it is that strong, so don't go off one. I'm sure all listeners know it does make sense looking at biases. It's, you can be a very good scientist and have something to sell, right? Absolutely. But that is, that's, again, I wouldn't go off one facet from any one article. Well, this is, you know, it's sunk. Just know that it's, it's always more complicated. And when you said we'd like to have conversations, I wanted to say, yes, it sucks for public health, but it's a conversation. It is. Yeah, it's a conversation.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 39:39

You know, the this idea of precision nutrition, the metabolomics conversation is very interesting. Can you share a little bit about the idea of diet and nutrition and the metabolomics in the body, just to explain to people what that is, what that breaks down to be.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 39:57

So, you know, we eat our food, it goes into our stomach. Like it gets broken down, or in our intestines as it's broken down into smaller molecules, those are absorbed, and that's really the first time that the food is getting into our bodies like a drug, right? That might affect our health. So, like, I don't think the process of taking an aspirin for a headache is different than eating an apple, right? So we know what. We can picture an aspirin being broken down and getting into our bloodstream, same with our food. And so what I use metabolomics for is try to pick that up. What has just passed through you won't see an apple in there. What will you see? And the most striking finding is that if associations between food X and health y are there, the association between the metabolite that comes from food X and outcome y are just unbelievably stronger.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 40:56

Dr. Alexis Wood: 41:35

So there are some I don't think they will ever be anything that's 100% universal, right? I mean, we find people genuine allergy to water, right? Like there's there's anomalies, right? We cannot count on human physiology. There are some that are probably all but damn it, you know, universal, we probably will see people having different amounts after the same food intake rate, which makes sense. And I do have some early evidence that there are some molecules that some people who report eating the same foods based on, in this case, whether they have diabetes or not, we just don't see an association between that molecule on that food. So I think there is early evidence that was a lot universal. With some differing levels of association, there may be some unique associations there.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 42:29

So, for example, in my mind, if I were to think about an example, I eat a pomegranate, and through the process of digestion, it creates a post-biotic urolithin A. 30% of people can make that, while the rest of us can't. Would that be an example of something like a metabolite or a measurement?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 42:51

Absolutely and those examples are more common than we think. There's a certain set of genes that metabolize linoleic acid, and people with a certain variants on a lot of these cluster of genes don't make certain saturated fatty acid. So we see that. And you know, that's such a much better example I'm going to use that. The example I give is sometime in my 20s, and I've moved out of home, and I before I realized I was fructose intolerant. Although this

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 43:19

should happen in a science that's interesting, are you sure? But what if you have small intestinal bacteria overgrowth?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 43:26

Um, well, that's possible, but I don't have any other symptoms. I don't have any bloating. I don't vegetables or anything. Nope. Okay, I my life’s pretty rock star on that front. But I, you know, so I had eaten watermelon, delish, and gone to the bathroom, and it had come out whole. Let's put it that way. And I was like, I'm dying. This is I am dying. Phone my mother. She's like, Oh no, fruits always gone straight through you. Like, we never heard of fructose intolerance, right? Like, and she's like, Oh yeah, no. And what's funny is, I mentioned it years later to my then ex-fiancé, and he was like, Oh yeah, you could never eat strawberries. I'm like, What do you mean? I could never eat strawberries. I was always eating them. And he was like, but you're always uncomfortable, and so on and put it together. But what I would say is, pretty sure my body did not get any metabolite. I mean, it was just going straight through.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 44:29

That's a good I mean, it's a good example with this is the interpersonal variability. Would that mean that certain foods would be better for certain people? Do you think that. I mean, that would be extraordinary if we could say, All right, here is your metabolomic profile. You need x, y and z. And, I mean, I don't know if we'll ever get there because of the breakdown of whatever urolithin A, yeah, I think it impact mitochondria.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 44:58

Probably most likely will look at like a clinical. Profile and say, because of this, you need these foods, and it was metabolites that told us that. And because, you know, this group do not get this metabolite, this group do this, get more or less that kind of thing. But that is one of the passion projects that like, unbelievably, it sounds to me so dang obvious, like when you ask the question, can you just explain what is the link between diet and metabolites? And I'm telling you on my grants, I get that all the time, and it just sort of foxes me. And I'm like, and that might be an English expression, confuses me, because I'm like, it's very obvious to me. And it seems very obvious that there is, right there, precision health. Now it doesn't seem obvious to me that following that for precision health will lead to clinical level changes in health outcomes. I think it could, very likely, but we haven't shown that, right but the idea that actually between people and sometimes within a person, like at different points in their life, maybe even different points of the day, maybe what else they've eaten, what is arising in the in their body after their intake can differ.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 46:16

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Dr. Alexis Wood: 47:48

I'm just amazed that's not like obvious, yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 47:52

I think it's a it's just a really great perspective. You'd mentioned something that I think is fascinating. Are there certain groups that don't show various metabolites, not that I know of. For example, if you have obesity, then you might be again, I don't want to say deficient, because we don't even know what the recommend. We don't know what a baseline need for a metabolite is, right, right?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 48:12

No, we don't even know. Are they transient, how much they stick around. They may not be a good you don't have this metabolite, and that it may be like the metabolite may indicate you're not getting what you need on that pathway right. That starts with genetics and your lifestyle, and then you put the food in, and you come out at a health outcome. They're like the mediating picture. They're like the brain MRI, between the BMI and the cognitive performance in your study. Do

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 48:44

you think there could become clinical targets because the miles study? Do you want to share a little bit about the mile study? Sure.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 48:52

So we we had about 300 US participants. We excluded people with type two diabetes because we were looking at progression to diabetes in the study, and they also had to do an oral glucose tolerance test three times worse, the worst, I would tell any woman who's had a kid like you're putting this in your study, and they're like, no, don't do it. So part of that study, which was really to look at how the microbiome influences conversion, or may prevent conversion, prediabetes, type two diabetes. We did collect a lot of information on what they ate. We gave them a pretty validated food frequency questionnaire. They're horrible. I know

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 49:33

Yes, Dave Klurfeld was just on here talking about how terrible they were.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 49:38

My director will just sometimes randomly rant at me about them. And I'm like, You know what? You want to give me enough money to do 24 hour recall and objective measures of a Bring it on. I'd love it. I also slightly segue here he was once like, trying to educate me very passionately. And I was like. Oh, Danny, I don't disagree, right? But there are some things we know. I think we know, whole grains, you need protein, and they're all substantiated by a very vast number of studies that use, like nutrition, epidemiology for all its sins, and like, a study shouldn't be taken in isolation. A method should not be taken in isolation. We've got pretty far. We know some stuff. And he looked at me and he went, you know, Lekki? There are some remarkably concordant and effective findings. I'm just nervous of how we get there. I'm like, that is fair. That is fair. So, we gave them a food frequency questionnaire, assessed their metabolites, correlated the pattern of metabolites with their dietary patterns. Spoiler alert, all the healthy dietary patterns were good. None was better than the other. And then we looked at, did those metabolites influence ability to control your blood sugar on the oral glucose tolerance test.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 51:06

But did you guys control for everything diet before exercise?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 51:10

We assess their habitual diet, and then they came in, and we had a fasted metabolome panel, and we got their glucose at the fasting immediate after two hours and so on.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 51:25

And ?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 51:28

We found that, yeah, all good diet…you eat a Mediterranean the higher you are adhering to the recommended Mediterranean style diet, the USDA guidelines, plug for my plug for my set of employers. There it was also the DASH diet, the Dietary Approaches to hypertension, the metabolites associated with that adherence are strongly associated with better glucose control, suggesting they may reduce diabetes risk.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 51:53

Do you think that? Do we know if processed foods have I love I love I love the face, which means I'm asking a good question. Can you share a little bit about your thoughts on processed foods and maybe how that is impacting Well, why don't you just start with your thoughts on processed foods, just because you made that face? So that means that this is, this is a good question.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 52:21

My thoughts on processed foods are that they are typically affordable, available and palatable, and we have to start from that point.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 52:28

We have an entire nation to feed.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 52:33

If they are unhealthy; that doesn't mean we shouldn't find that. We need to know, but we have to couch it in those terms about dissemination. I think it depends on how you define processed foods. And I don't mean that, you know, I review a lot of studies, people have come up with definitions. It's this milling and we've got certain stages, but the concept of a processed food is so diverse, right? If I make spaghetti bolognese by hand, or maybe I pick something like lentil bolognese, I would never eat lentils. I don't like them, but, you know, is it processed? Right? I've mixed things. I've added things. May I reluctantly admit there is emerging consistency to evidence that processed foods may not be the best for health.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 53:29

Or is it the amount?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 53:31

The amount, it's like everything is the amount, right? Like there's a side of bacteria and so on. There's nothing you eat that's gonna kill you tomorrow, right? Not gonna give you diabetes tomorrow,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 53:46

which I think is the problem, right? I mean, right? Think about it. There's, there's so much flexibility in what we're eating and how our lifestyles are. For example, sarcopenia doesn't happen in a day, right?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 53:56

None of it does, and you've got to maintain it, which was my interest in self regulation, if your goal directed behavior is 50 years in the future. How do you go towards that? And weight loss and weight maintenance, very different things, right? Because of that, are you there? That's what Jim Hill was talking about. Yes, he was amazing, right? Are you going for a goal or not? And what's your feedback and what's the psychology around that?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 54:19

I did find very interesting. You described this metabolite Summary Score as a more biological, meaningful tool. Do you feel comfortable? I mean, that was just so interesting. So basically, the work in metabolites that you're doing, it's really fascinating. And I again, I think it's kind of the way the future, because now we're looking beyond just proteins, carbohydrates and fats, but we're looking at, okay, so you eat this carb, but then the breakdown is, what actually and what is the gut microbiome doing within and how is that effecting? That is novel. I don't know if novel. It's just very thoughtful. So. What is this? MSS?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 55:04

Actually, it's just basically, if I took those bioactive compounds associated with a certain dietary intake and I summed them up, you've got a score, because looking at, you know, we found hundreds of metabolites associated with the dietary pattern, which one would expect from a very complex dietary pattern. Looking at them individually does not give us a clear direction to follow.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 55:29

Yeah, that's actually, that's a really good point. And maybe, do you think it's a reductionist way of saying, okay, so eat this apple, because the apple is going to be good. But is it the interplay between, I don't know, fruits, vegetables, fibers, proteins…

Dr. Alexis Wood: 55:43

I think so. I think the metabolomic profile you get from eating your food depends what you eat it with. I mean, I did look for really strong evidence of that. Didn't find it. But we do know you can change the glycemic load of a meal, right by changing what you eat with certain foods, add some fat to your sugar, it will be digested slowly, and you'll have a different insulin response. That's just the same really different biological systems as the metabolites. So I think they do interact, and I think that's a really complicated piece of looking at nutrition is we need to know what individual foods might have the potential to do or not do, but it depends kind of how they're eaten and maybe how they're prepared, which brings in the processed issue.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 56:31

What are you most excited about that you're working on right now?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 56:34

I would be, well, I'm very excited about the ability to maybe characterize the metabolome of people with pre diabetes. Happen to be right right in some deep analyzes, and we have maybe been way more successful than I ever hoped at being able to discriminate between without knowing what their status is. Discriminate between them. Maybe. Taking that forward, I'm I'm just really fascinated by what changes the effects of food on your body, so maybe day to night does, right. In that sense, I'm like, didn't we all go out drinking alcohol when we were 19? Go to bed at 2am wake up at seven and hit those classes. Now, that is not happening. Something physiological has drived that behavioral response or that feeling response to alcohol, so we can change within ourselves too. And I think even just I'm probably less at the implementation end of going, okay, now I'm going to figure out morning and night I'm more of the like. Can I demonstrate that convincingly, that we need to be thinking about groups of people responding differently and the same person responding differently, perhaps across their lifestyle, perhaps on whether they develop diabetes or not, perhaps time of day, circadian rhythm. Can I demonstrate that robustly and repeatedly in a compelling way that other scientists could really take that forward for public health.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 58:04

Which is, which is really meaningful work. And you know, you think about these early life behaviors, do you think that there is a relationship between early life behaviors that track with aging?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 58:19

This is a really good question. You know, had a heads up, this might come up, and I thought about it. And we do see the tracking of some behaviors right across the lifespan. I just don't, I don't believe anything is immutable. And you know, on the 2am drunken conversations, it always comes out like, just so optimistic, right? Like everyone can be, everyone has worth and value, right? Sort of the same thing, right? Not that what we eat and whether we exercise is linked to our weather value at all, but I do every moment you put your body in a healthy physiological state is better than every moment it's receiving a health I'm hesitant to use the word insult, right? We will always have we ate the cake, we whatever we want, drank the margarita, and I think

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 59:18

Never did that.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 59:20

I don't believe you anymore. I think we have a sense that it's that repeatedly rate over time and the physical state. And so, of course, childhood is part of that. Children are, you know, I worked in infant cognition for a while as well, because I wanted to demonstrate how complex infants are with their how much they can do and see and understand. I believe it's fundamentally important to treat an infant like with the respect you would treat an adult, right? So, unless you're saving their life, I was not a big fan of just moving kids who are in the way, right? I'm like, you never do that to an ad. I mean, I mean, that's a good one. Push me out the way. We're gonna have words, right?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 1:00:03

Do not cross her, that's right.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 1:00:05

And so in a framework of like, this time is really important. You may also it's a great time to set up some behaviors and some trajectories. And you the nice thing about childhood as a caregiver, whatever that is, is you've got a wonderful, enriched opportunity in which they're all eyes and all ears to share something right, share something you think is helpful and beneficial. I don't think we know fully how far that carries, but it's almost unethical not to do that right. And I believe that what the things I care about in parenting my children, keeps them healthy now, will set them up for success and impact their health trajectory. Can I show you a convincing study on that? No.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 1:00:50

Not yet, not yet, not yet. Do you think that you looked at the increase in screen time? Have you been looking at that? And yeah, there's some kind of influence on brain development.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 1:01:03

Yes. So we have someone at the Children Nutrition Research Center who's developed more objective measures of screen time, and they've tested and validated it. Then they wanted to write some studies around that, and I lead a with with two other wonderful colleagues, a study that looks..It looks at, ostensibly, the amount of screen time, self regulation and BMI. And does screen time decrease self-regulation and increase BMI? Is that one of the pathways by which screen time may be associated with increased obesity risk. My personal interest is, can we alter that? Which part the it's not there is definitely an association between screen time and lower self-regulation and higher BMI. Is it causal? We don't know that association is there. Can we alter it? And so I'm very interested, I think about back from my developmental psychology, parenting, right? And the model we give parents for the ideal general parenting set boundaries, model good behavior. Maintain those boundaries, flexibly responding to the needs of the child and in a COVID time, be respectful, you know, so don't coerce them. Colimain, Cheryl Hughes took that framework and applied it to food parenting and said to date, that just about seems to be our best population advice. Set up a healthy food environment, model good food behaviors. Set boundaries for your children and and help them stay within those boundaries in a flexible and responsive way. I as a parent, realized I did exactly the screens right we I think we all understand food should not be used as a reward or a punishment, right? How often do we say, well, if I probably said yesterday, if you read for an hour, you can have 20 minute screen time. And I'm like, maybe the parenting around screen time is part of the problem. Like and I think about, when we look about parenting around emotions and emotion self-regulation, you want to give your child a safe space to express those emotions, and your role as a parent is to help shape what they do with them. How do they down regulate an unpleasant emotion without hitting something or, you know, the tantrum that we see very appropriate.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 1:03:27

My kids don't.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 1:03:28

So what did I used to say to my kids? I once so one is 12, one is eight, when the eight year old was come up to three and was allowed an iPad. My goodness, I can't remember that she went to cry when her time was up, and I was like, Sam, what happens if you cry over electronics? And he parroted, if you cry over electronics, you don't get them for a week. And he was quite happy with it. But I was like, Man, that is horrible parenting. Like, you're like, blunting their emotional response and not allowing them to deal with it. And it got me thinking, like,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 1:03:58

I mean, he was dealing with it.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 1:03:59

Well, I don't remember. I mean, you know, it was like, Don't cry in front of me. I see, go away. Who knows if they're dealing with it healthily or if they're, you know, it's not about talking about it and saying, we have these, how do you down regulate this healthy I was like, I don't want to hear it. I also then, you know, when we talk about fostering good self regulation in the home and good cognitive development. It's a lot of like asking kids about their day, doing things with them, helping them problem solve in a way that is not that is autonomy promoting, you know, the kind of thing like, Hmm, that's a lovely brick house you built. Do you think it would look nice with a chimney? What else could you add to it? All that stuff, right?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 1:04:39

Because you did earn your PhD in part in psychiatry, right? Developmental Psychology, yes, yeah, yeah. I mean, that is a lot of stuff. I have

Dr. Alexis Wood: 1:04:48

two very fast different lines of that. I'm trying to bring together with Child Nutrition, metabolomics and cognitive development, right?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 1:04:57

Bring that in. Do you think there is a unifying. Statement that. And again, I understand, as a scientist, you probably don't like unifying statements in terms of, I mean, because good scientists always say, well, potentially we might see this, but

Dr. Alexis Wood: 1:05:11

We're just so fun at parties.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 1:05:14

I actually have a feeling you're very popular at parties, but had nothing to do with the margarita or the burpees before. But what do you feel comfortable and maybe it isn't proven yet, but are there a few things that you truly believe are related to, say, the positive development of our children?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 1:05:36

Sure, I do. I believe modeling good behavior, which can be really hard, definitely, even sometimes over modeling, talking about it. So when I'm very upset, I'll say, I am upset. I don't know. I don't know how to, I don't know how to do this emotion, which I wouldn't say to an adult, right? So the kids can see that, right? Modeling, good modeling. I think again, setting boundaries.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 1:06:01

How would you define setting, setting boundaries?

Dr. Alexis Wood: 1:06:05

Oh, I mean, it could be bedtime is this time, right? It could be, we don't speak to people like that. It could be, you always say, please. You know you always say thank you. And your hands, someone has something to you. So still in my preteen, I will hand something. And if he doesn't say thank you, just hold on to it. You. Just hold on to it, you know, and he'll laugh say, Thanks, Mom. So setting those they're called boundaries, but I guess you could call them goals. You could call them behaviors and consistently modeling them and adhering to them, but being responsive and flexible. You know, the child has changing needs. Maybe those behaviors and boundaries need to change. Maybe the extent you hold them to that standard needs to change. I think that is really key. And I also think treating children like adults and talking to them and explaining, they can understand. Yeah, they can understand, you know?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 1:07:04

And if they don't, they'll get there, they'll get there.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 1:07:06

They’ll take. I mean, the human right, you study child cognition and cognitive development. I am blown away by the complexity, and I want to say the word adaptivity, how adaptive it is. Children will take what they need and they'll take it in and just get rid of the rest. I mean, we're all struggling with information overload. We struggle going back to Tiktok as a nutrition because what I don't know what to believe, which is a reasonable concern. Children, aside of that, are faced with this information overload, and they are so good at I'm gonna take this thing, yeah, this is what I need right now. I'm gonna build on it. Is phenomenal. I think, you know,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 1:07:45

the future is obviously this younger generation, and if we can get it right for them, yeah, in terms of nutrition behaviors, modeling, and I definitely believe that all of that starts. I'm not a professional child rear but I do have two the things that you're saying make a lot of sense. And if I were to take away from all of the things that you talked about, it is good modeling an appropriate diet could be different for everybody, whether you can afford luxury foods or not. But really thinking about, how do we pattern a Mediterranean style diet, which makes tons of sense, and that there's this level of inter individual variability from a metabolomic standpoint, and don't get your information off Tiktok.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 1:08:31

But yeah, one other thing, what I find kids really respond well to, because I often I go into schools things, is telling them, at the food level, place up what your values are and why, why you believe in a healthy diet and almost letting them make their own. I mean, you can't just let them make their own chocies.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

We do that actually, right? We we do that.

Dr. Alexis Wood

And I talk to my kids a lot about why I eat a healthy diet and what it can do and and it's more I set the value up here. Now my partner is very different. He's very focused on the behavior, and we've had the good coming together of like, hey, there's a middle. They are little. Let's not let him make too many health mistakes. He did when my daughter was three, and I was like, serve a healthy meal. We don't serve anything else, but it is their choice of eat it. Because I wouldn't force an adult to eat. And then there's healthy food elsewise. And he said, Becky, your three year old has had candy for dinner for three nights straight. And I was like yeah

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 1:09:25

was like, yeah, maybe, like, self-regulation, but

Dr. Alexis Wood: 1:09:31

Yes, I would say absolutely all of that. And watch this space, because I think I would like to think we're on the brink of being able to at least quantify and demonstrate the importance and the power of precision nutrition.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

That would be extraordinary.

Dr. Alexis Wood

That'd be amazing to be able to say, I mean, I would do it at a population level, but there is no reason if we did it well, and you had the time, you couldn't go have a diet, feed your stuff, they'll look at it. You know. In your own clinic, and figure it out on that level, which is just huge,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 1:10:04

yes, like, super exciting. Well, Dr Alexis wood, I'm sorry, Lekki, Lekki Wood, you are a joy. Unusual for a scientist, very robust and very fun and extremely well educated, and you're doing tremendous work. I am so grateful that you were willing to spend the time with me.

Dr. Alexis Wood: 1:10:26

Thank you so much. Well, thank you so much. That's really kind. Thank you.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: 1:10:29

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