Brain Maker: The Power of Gut Microbes to Heal and Protect Your Brain for Life Kindle Edition

Even if you don't know a lot about medical terms, he explains them well. It's a book that gives you thoughts about your eating habits. I could not do all that he asked but I did change a few things and I felt better and lost about 5 pounds. So I would tell anyone to give it a read.

Dr. Perlmutter scores again with a great book, this time about the profound impact of gut flora on our health. As patients and people we have been taught that having a propensity to get fat, dementia or cancer is “genetic” and we are mostly helpless to change that. Yet, the research shows that our second genome, that of our gut population, could be a much more relevant and powerful factor than our own human genome.David Perlmutter enjoys a privileged position of being a physician, therefore people listen to him. This information is well cited, based on research and brings it to the masses with his approachable, conversational style as well as his unabashed enthusiasm for the potential of treatments and cures for his patients. He starts with the research that makes foundational concepts: sterile mice implanted with gut flora from slender mice stay lean, mice implanted with obese mice get fat when given the same diet and environment. Then he expands to the more abstract information like the detrimental effects of antibiotics and the study that showed women who have undergone the most days on antibiotics have twice the rate of breast cancer. He shows how poor gut health causes high blood sugar, inflammation, decreased resilience to stress, sleep and cognitive difficulties and more.The angle that is original in this book is the relationship of gut dysbiosis and brain diseases and practical application of gut healing. People suffering from major depression, Alzheimer’s and autism have high rates of gut dysbiosis. In his practice, when he corrects the gut imbalance in people with these and other neurological diseases, symptoms often decrease or sometimes disappear. These are diseases with no accepted “cure”. He peppered his book with anecdotal reports of his patients having mind blowing transformations like these after taking very intentional steps such as diet modification, eating fermented foods and even probiotic enemas. Hopefully there will be some real research in this area someday. His epilogue seems optimistic that sufficient research will happen. I doubt this field is getting the true attention it deserves. He shows no criticism towards the “system” at the fact that fecal transplants are only approved for C.diff patients yet people with IBS and other diseases get radically great results from them. He matter of factly tells us sends his patients that need a fecal transplant overseas. Well good for those who have the luxury of seeing the celebrity doctor then jet set to Europe to get their treatment. What about the rest of people suffering?I think this book is great in the way it shows the whole picture of the gut flora from the negative effects of cesarean birth, rounds of antibiotics, chemical exposure and a western diet. He clearly outlines a path to reversing a damaged gut. The one criticism I have is that he recommends a high fiber diet heavy with fermented foods and includes a week long diet plan. He also give instruction on how to ferment to make this lifestyle affordable and accessible to all. However, adding 3 servings a day of billions of bacteria a day can cause digestive distress to most people accustomed to the standard American diet. I would recommend a gradual introduction instead.Overall, it’s a great book. It’s well cited, clearly organized. He quotes top scientists and researchers that all share his enthusiasm for this frontier of healing and understanding the human body. It’s not dumbed down yet it’s understandable enough for the common reader. This book will be groundbreaking in increasing awareness of this emerging field that affects us all.

This book reinforced all that I had read online and was experiencing in my own life. I crashed BIG time (neurological symptoms)! After blood tests revealed nothing wrong, I looked elsewhere and eliminated gluten to see improvement in my health and a friend recommended Wheat Belly, another great book and one that Dr. Perlmutter references in his first book, Grain Brain. I enjoyed that so much that I went on to read Grain Brain and then Wheat Belly Total Health and then this, Brain Maker.Throughout all this reading, I was having further issues with my health and looking for answers while eliminating more foods until I finally saw a turnaround. By the time I read BRAIN MAKER, I had learned a great deal online and in these books. All of it has been invaluable information that led me on a journey to understanding what was happening to me and why I was improving with each change I made. Brain Maker gets into details that helped further my education and reinforced the necessary changes I had made in my diet. After making adjustments to my gut flora through diet and finding the right probiotics and realizing that all my symptoms matched a candida overgrowth (and I had been a sugar/grain addict before I crashed--perfect food for the bad gut bugs), I have recovered and am feeling wonderful and adding back in healthy whole foods that I couldn't tolerate for a while. Based on Dr. Perlmutter's recommendation, I added coconut oil to my cooking and fish oil supplements and these have made a positive impact. For a while, I could not tolerate fermented foods or enjoy the teas I love, but that has improved also and I will be adding them back based on his recommendations.All my life, I've had digestive issues and memory problems and depression that have grown worse over the last fifteen years and also started having anxiety attacks. I attributed these to getting older (I'm 40 now). However, since my big crash and changing my diet, that has improved, along with my sleep (always had a problem with insomnia). I'm so happy that I can more fully follow his diet recommendations, because what I've been able to experience of it so far has been magnificent.And best yet, I feel good to recommend these books because he is an MD and a neurologist at that. I also like that he grants for special situations where not everyone is going to see the same results, depending on their specific conditions and situations, that each of us is different.Also, he recommends high amounts of vitamin D but new studies show that vitamin K is also needed to metabolize vitamin D, which is not mentioned in the book. This can be found in leafy greens and other veggies that are recommended on his diet. And some of us are sensitive enough to anything that we don't need to use as much as he recommends. The caveat here is to make adjustments for your particular metabolism.I love this book and had already implemented 90% of it into the changes I had made to feel twenty years younger and more creative than I can remember being in a long time. This book is a worthwhile read. I love that he uses studies data, anecdotes and examples from his own practice, and recipes. He presents the information fairly, even going so far as to acknowledge that in studies, a relationship in data does not imply causation and doesn't just imply that it supports his point.

Reading this book often felt like a hard slog. There was a lot of information to back up his theories but much of it could have been put in an appendix by just writing the results of the studies in the main body and the sources outside. Because the author decided not to do this it felt more like a badly subjective academic text than something written for the lay person. Having said that there are some golden nuggets of information included. But readers would be forgiven for skipping most of the chapters and jumping to the last part about how we can help ourselves.

I have read many books on good health and spent a year revamping my diet through a health practitioner. This book is the best of the best. Backed up by the latest research, it makes a compelling and fascinating case for making looking after your gut. The best part is that it is so easy and science has shown your gut can heal rapidly if you look after it. There are recipes and meal suggestions. I have finished reading feeling empowered with knowledge about how to give my body the best chance of wellness through diet. A triumph.

I regret so much reading this book.I have developed very nasty gastrointestinal symptoms after taking probiotics.I gave the book a try in an atempt to improve my anxiety.Soon after I started taking the probiotics ,the belching and flatulence started and it only got worse from there.Even now I have symptoms that started back in April. Never had significant gi symptoms before. I guess the book is a good read , but it really didn:t help me...it did quite the opposite.

As someone who has experienced digestive disorders and anxiety for more than a decade, I was keen to read this book and understand the latest scientific thinking. Perlmutter presents a compelling case for the influence of our gut microbiome on health.

Great insights in how our brains depend on what our guts can produce and how our guts depend on bacteria that in turn depend on the food we eat. Eat highly refined high-carb and low-fat SAD food and you will be SAD, no matter how much probiotics or vitamins or fruits one adds, as also most of the vitamins and antioxidants then will flush through, not only the fat-soluble ones.