Mr. Shiva Subramanian
Hi!!
My name is Shiva Subramanian and I head Connect Ventures. We are deeply into health and having fun with health... and game of fine life... and today I have Kumar Sankaran of Leucine Rich Bio. He's also known as Biome Shankar.
Kumar, tell them a few words about yourself.
Mr. Kumar Sankaran
Hi!!
I'm Kumar Sankaran I'm the CEO of Leucine Rich Bio... We are South Asia's first microbiome company... and like Shiva said we're having fun with microbiome and impacting everyone's life. There's lots of work that's been drawn down on the microbiome... as we know exercise, independent of diet, changes the gut microbiome... and now we're trying to get into how different exercises, how different sports are actually impacting the microbiome.
What actually brought about these studies was a landmark study that was conducted couple of years ago, where long distance runner's microbiome was checked and they found a specific bacteria called Veillonella atyptica... which was shown to be the reason why they could run a little longer than others.
And guess who is the only... or who's sample was the only sample to have that bacteria?.. yours !!
Mr. Shiva Subramanian
Having said that Kumar... we only have a hundred samples... so you know... we shouldn't get too excited by it.
This is one of the things that we'd like to actually take out to people... and actually get more data from the whole country... so that we are able to see the impact of the microbiome on sports at large.
So, one of the things we also came upon recently is another study on the different kinds of microbiome that different kinds of athletes actually have... and it's all related to... interestingly the oxygen consumption and the kind of impact sport as well. What then becomes interesting is that... we will now need to look at the foods that athletes from different disciplines have... not only to feed macro and micro nutrition... but also to feed the gut bacteria.
Mr. Kumar Sankaran
Yes... and it's not about the difference sports as well... it's [also] about their body condition at that point of time. I think it has to be... one its getting personalized to the type of sports... but it's also to personalize [the foods] to the condition at that point of time... and I think looking at the microbiome and designing good around that is very very critical for performance.
Mr. Shiva Subramanian
Because today the fermented food industry... is sort of popping up again... but... as India we've always had like a very huge resource for fermented foods... do you think we're losing it today in someway?
Mr. Kumar Sankaran
I think we've lost it ever since their refrigeration came into into place... we've lost the art of fermented foods and slowly it's probably gone out of our diet.... and it's very very important to get back into our diet. I mean a simple example that I can give you is... you know as soon as the curd is made it's put into the fridge and.... all the good bacteria die over there... so having fresh curds is... is a lost art in India.
Mr. Shiva Subramanian
May I also ask a couple things since we're discussing curd?
It would also be important to get it from an A1 source or A2 source?!... I've seen some recent research on that as well... what do you think of that?
Mr. Kumar Sankaran
I think the different kinds of curds that are available provides different kinds of nutrition... so it is dependent on the person's present microbiome... what needs to be achieved and... it's based on that [one needs to decide] what kind of curds needs to be taken. Whether it's a dairy based fermentation... or it's a non dairy based fermentation... that also determines what kind of bacterial composition goes into the gut.
Mr. Shiva Subramanian
Also... what are your thoughts on now pasteurization of milk?
Mr. Kumar Sankaran
Ah okay!!..
I'm not gonna have a popular opinion over here... maybe pasteurization was the wrong thing to do... hmmm... it did improve the shelf life... but I think we're losing out on value that milk provides, by pasteurization [of milk]. So, it's a technique which is both needed but... at the same time but the nutrient value is going down by pasteurization.
Mr. Shiva Subramanian
I mean... that's great!!
So the other thing is... getting to a you a quick scenario... on what kind of foods you may recommend for a particular kind of sport... in terms this fermentation... I mean... because today when you look at sports nutrition... we're not looking at it as gut bacteria - one of our areas of speciality... what we have been developing currently with Health Exchange is... actually to bring this kind of knowledge out to the market at large... - so can you just take a quick case scenario... and just tell us how you would develop a bacteria... for certain athlete(s) and... why [is it important]?... just a short one?
Mr. Kumar Sankaran
So...
Let's just take shot chain fatty acids [SCFAs]... they are very very important for the gut bacteria... because from their a lot of good nutrients are then circulated in to the body. Getting food... which is probably rich in fiber... which will allow for SCFAs to be [produced] in the gut... for that to be further processed... I think that's a good way forward.
Mr. Shiva Subramanian
That's great Kumar!!
Again the idea for us is to do these short modules for you and... actually would put all the studies up as well... so that... you know... anybody who wants to begin to learn about it and... where to test... how to get this kind of data... for your own performance... for life... you know... has access to it.
Just a small addition to whatever you were saying... is also important for people who have like... any gut issues to be careful of what kind of fiber they put in... maybe we should just also toss that up... because you know... these things become like one size fits all and... as you know you know... we're far away from that... so maybe... we should also put out the fact that [how important these things are]
Mr. Kumar Sankaran
Yeah yeah!!
[With] the gut microbiome... one-size-fits-all theory doesn't work at all... it's super personalized... it's what you require at the moment. You look at a lot of high performance athletes and [their] guts and... you see a lots of probiotics actually going down. So.. I mean... you would imagine the high-performing athletes [to be] probably the most healthy person... but you look at the gut microbiome and you see the diversity is less... the probiotics are less... so they need to be fed in in a certain way.
Person with gut issues... need to be getting the right kind of nutrition... so it totally depends on what the microbiome is at the moment and... based on that how [and] what needs to be changed comes from the food.
Mr. Shiva Subramanian
Excellent!!
One last point...on the immunity.
Would the reason that an athlete who's overusing his body... the probiotics... especially the biome in the gut has depleted because of the stress that he's actually putting on his body... which means his immune response to that stress is at large created by the gut bacteria... I think 80% of immune [system] actually lies your gut. Would that be one of the reasons and... that would be why we need to pay attention to this dynamic.
Mr. Kumar Sankaran
Yes!!
It's one of the major reasons... I think when an athlete is putting his body through so much of training... there's a lot of inflammation that is happening... which is depleting the gut bacteria even more... and which is why the microbiome is such a critical thing to get the body back into a good state and optimize performance based on that. Immunity... I mean... in general the gut bacteria plays a huge role and immunity in terms of respiratory diseases plays a humungous role. So, it is very very important for the microbiome to be in a eubiosis state.
Mr. Shiva Subramanian
Thank you Kumar!!
So that's our bite-size BugSpeaks and... I think we want to do a lot more of these. We'll add all the links in... so that everybody has the information and knowledge about it.\
Thank you very much.
