The Gut

It's said that the most consistent symptom of Parkinson's isn't the tremor, but constipation. Could this rather inconvenient truth reveal a relationship between our gut microbiome and development of the disease? To help with this deep-dive into the gut, the Movers & Shakers are joined by a gastroenterologist, a professor of microbiome, and the creator of a probiotic for gut health. Tune in, and get to the heart of how a Mediterranean diet could help with PD (though sadly it doesn't consist of profiteroles, moussaka or a big bowl of paella).

By Podot

Each week Rory Cellan-Jones guides us between the laughs and moans in the pub. To read Rory's summary of this week's episode click here.

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Guest Biographies

Barry Smith

Barry Smith devoted almost 40 years to developing a life-changing food supplement which is now the UK's No 1 water-based live and active bacteria supplement. Born in Libya, with a father in the Army, Barry attended 10 schools by the time he left education to join the Army himself. He trained as a medic and joined the Parachute Regiment, serving in Kenya, Iceland and Ireland. Leaving the Army in search of the ‘good life’, Barry settled on a farm in the Surrey Hills, creating a successful market garden business. It was a series of chance encounters that led him to create bacteria-based feed for animals – a form of probiotic. Seeing the success on his animals spurred him on to take the technology to people, and Barry spent years on research and development before Symprove was put into the market. Symprove now serves hundreds of thousands of customers each day.

Dr Guy Chung-Faye

Dr. Guy Chung-Faye is a consultant gastroenterologist. He previously served as the Clinical Lead in Upper GI Cancer for 15 years and is the current director of Bowel Cancer Screening. He treats patients with a wide range of gastrointestinal disorders, with specific expertise in gastro-intestinal cancer, gastroenteritis, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, dyspepsia, bloating, and reflux. He is skilled in advanced diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopic procedures and is a nationally qualified Bowel Cancer Screening Colonoscopist with a colonoscopy completion rate of over 95 percent and very high endoscopic comfort scores. Dr. Chung-Faye graduated from the University of Leicester Medical School and earned a PhD from the University of Birmingham for his work on Gene Therapy in Colon Cancer. He has multiple peer-reviewed journal publications and book chapters to his name and is currently involved in IBD, cancer, and genetics research. In his free time, Dr. Chung-Faye enjoys playing tennis and learning languages.

• Taken from www.hcahealthcare.co.uk

Kieran Tuohy

Kieran Tuohy is Professor of Energy Metabolism and Microbiome at the School of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Leeds. He is a microbiologist working in the field of nutrition and his research focuses on how microbiomes both within the gut and along the food chain impact on human nutrition, health and disease risk. He has a particular interest in whole plant foods, fermented foods and their bioactive components, and how they modulate the intestinal microbiota for improved host health. He joined University of Leeds in February 2022, and before that led a team of microbiologists, nutritionists and bioinformaticists at the Nutrition and Nutrigenomics Unit, Fondazione Edmund Mach, Italy for 10 years. Between 2006 and 2010, he served as lecturer in Food Metabonomics at the Department of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Reading, and before that worked as a researcher in the laboratory of Professor Glenn Gibson at Reading. He received his PhD from the University of Surrey in 2000 under the supervision of Professors Martin Adams and Ian Rowland. He holds an MSc in Environmental Microbiology from the University of Aberdeen, and BSc in Industrial Microbiology from University College Dublin, Ireland.

Taken from LinkedIn.

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