Endometriosis and the Gut…

Endometriosis is essentially an unwanted, illegal rave in a woman’s pelvic cavity, complete with inflammatory strobe lights and a bass drop of nerve pain that makes your gut feel like it’s in the middle of a mosh pit.

A condition where tissue resembling the uterine lining grows where it shouldn’t, sparking misery in organs from the ovaries to the bowel. But even when endometrial lesions aren’t physically colonizing your intestines, the inflammation they create can still turn your digestive system into dumpster fire. 

The Endo-Gut connection: Visceral hypersensitivity: 

Visceral hypersensitivity is the biological equivalent of your nervous system mistaking a candle flame for a full blown fire. In endometriosis, inflammatory molecules like prostaglandins and cytokines turn up the “volume” on pain signals in the gut.

Studies show that 65% of women with minimal endometriosis and 50% with severe disease meet diagnostic criteria for IBS. When researchers poked the rectums of endometriosis patients with balloon distension (because science is weird), they found pain thresholds were 30% lower than in controls… comparable to IBS patients.

Translation: your gut’s pain sensors are stuck in panic mode, interpreting normal digestive processes as major threats.

This neuro-inflammatory cross-talk isn’t just a one-way street. Endometriotic lesions secrete nerve growth factor (NGF), sprouting new pain fibers that wire your pelvis like a poorly planned subway system. Meanwhile, mast cells; i.e the body’s histamine-packed inflammation merchants… flood the area, further sensitizing nerves. The result is bloating, diarrhea, and constipation that’s indistinguishable from IBS, even when your bowel is lesion-free.

How to (maybe) help calm the chaos

First of all there is no quick fix for endometriosis and many chronic gynaecological conditions. No diet is a cure for this. However, reviewing the available literature and understanding the distorted gut microbiome and gut physiology could give some clues to work out things which may help from a symptom management point of view.

1. Dietary manipulation: 

Low-FODMAP: In a UK study, 69% of endometriosis patients reported symptom relief using this IBS-friendly protocol. Target: Reducing fermentable carbs that feed gas-producing bacteria. (PMID: 36794746)

Fiber front-loading: Swap red meat for plants to lower inflammatory prostaglandins. Bonus: Fiber feeds butyrate-producing bacteria that soothe the gut. (PMID: 36794746)

Omega-3 boost: Flaxseeds and fatty fish increase ALA, which blocks PGE2—a key pain mediator in endometriosis (PMID: 36506023)

2. Heat & beat: Distract your nervous system

Thermal warfare: Heating pads can reduce pelvic muscle spasms and back pain and there is some evidence that they can be comparable to NSAIDs for pain. (PMID: 22913409)

The elephant in the womb

We are stuck in symptom management hell for endometriosis.

Why? Because the root causes remain murky. Genetic studies hint that endometriosis and IBS share risk genes (NGF, BDNF), explaining why 1 in 3 endo patients develop IBS. Yet, drug development lags because (a) most research uses male mice (seriously), and (b) pelvic pain is historically dismissed as “normal”.

Until science prioritizes endometriosis research over, say, baldness cures for men (which we sort of already have a fix for?!) , we’re stuck playing Whac-A-Mole with symptoms. The gut-brain-pelvis axis is clearly a key battleground; targeting visceral hypersensitivity and microbial dysbiosis could revolutionize care. For now, track symptoms like a private investigator and I’ll keep you posted on any novel endometriosis research!

Adapt or suffer in a world that won’t cooperate…

I am an only child..

(Cue you saying “I know I could tell…”)

…which, in practical terms, meant I was raised in a dictatorship where I was both the tyrant and the favorite citizen. No siblings to steal my toys, no brothers or sisters to fight over the last slice of pizza. I lived in a world where things mostly went my way.

Then, for reasons I can only assume were designed to build character, I briefly went to boarding school and later shared a university house with friends, where personal space was stuff of legend and myth, and the communal fridge was a lawless wasteland of stolen milk and passive-aggressive post-it notes.

That was when I first met unpredictability in its raw, unfiltered form (my frozen hash browns were stolen). Life wasn’t a neat, single-player RPG where I controlled all the variables. It was an open-world chaos simulator with far too many characters making decisions that affected me whether I liked it or not.

And that’s when I realized: rigidity is a death sentence in an unpredictable world.

I admire persistence. The ability to keep going when things suck, to push through discomfort, to grit your teeth and get it done… it’s an essential skill. If you’re never persistent, you’ll never achieve anything meaningful.

But…

There’s a fine line between stubbornness and self-sabotage. Between resilience and banging your head against a wall because you refuse to acknowledge there’s a door two feet to the left.

For much of my life, failure felt like an insult. If something didn’t work, I assumed I just had to push harder, work longer, fight more aggressively. But then I realized:

Failure isn’t an attack… it’s the best and rawest form of feedback.

That business idea you were convinced would work but didn’t? Feedback.

That relationship that crashed and burned spectacularly? Also feedback.

The most successful people aren’t the ones who never fail; they’re the ones who treat failure like a GPS rerouting them toward a better path.

Neuroscience of adaptability: Your brain is lazy, but trainable

Your brain hates change. It’s wired for efficiency, which means it prefers predictability, routines, and certainty. This is why we cling to failing strategies; because even when something isn’t working, it still feels familiar.

Neuroscientific studies on cognitive flexibility show that dopamine levels influence our ability to switch strategies. When things don’t go our way, rigid thinkers experience frustration and emotional resistance… while adaptable people experience curiosity.

In other words: your brain can either panic when faced with change or get excited about finding a new way forward. The trick is training yourself to see obstacles as alternate routes, not roadblocks.

Which brings me to society’s biggest problem:

We are obsessed with the idea of “one correct path”. The right career. The right diet. The right way to live. And when things don’t go according to plan, we implode, because we’ve anchored our entire sense of self to a single outcome.

If you play a video game and can’t get past one route, do you sit there screaming at the screen until the universe bends to your will? Gamers will tell you… you find another way.

Life is the same. If one path fails, you don’t fail…you reroute.

This realization freed me. Instead of feeling defeated by failure, I started treating it like a map showing me where not to go.

Suddenly, life wasn’t just about the “big goal” anymore; it became about the little unexpected side quests. And the detours became more fun than the original plan.

If you want total control over life, you’re going to have a bad time. Don’t fight unpredictability, become flexible enough to embrace it. 

Memory is your Brain’s drunk Historian…

I used to think my brain was a steel trap for facts…it’s a makeshift storage room run by a caffeinated toddler. At best, our memory is a shapeshifting con artist that reconstructs the past to serve your present agenda. 

The great memory heist: Your brain rewrites reality

Forget “photographic memory.” Every recall is a remix. When you retrieve a memory, your prefrontal cortex (PFC), a.k.a the brain’s overpaid intern, reconstructs it using fragments stored across the neocortex. Studies show 60% of details in “vivid” memories are fabricated, often influenced by your current mood or last night’s Netflix binge. When I spoke to Dr Charan Ranganath on my recent podcast episode about memory, he calls this “mental time travel” with creative liberties.

Example: That time you definitely stood up to your boss? Your PFC probably spliced in clips from The Breakfast Club and your bathroom mirror pep talks.

You see, memory and imagination use the same neural machinery. The hippocampus doesn’t just archive the past… it simulates futures. fMRI scans (fancy brain imaging studies) show identical activation patterns whether you’re recalling your first kiss or planning a heist to steal the Crown Jewels.

I don’t mean to fuel any existential angst you might have, but your “core memories” are likely amalgamations of real events, Simpsons episodes, and your mum’s retellings. Congrats…your identity is a collage of lies.

This memory distortion goes one step further. Ever argue with a partner about who said what during a fight? Thank interference, where competing memories corrupt each other like a game of telephone played by neurons. Group recollections are especially unreliable…where dominant personalities can implant false details into others’ minds, Inception-style!

Advance mind hacking tip: Next time you’re cooking, gaslight your friends first - e.g. “You loved my vegan tofu turkey. Don’t you remember?”

I mentioned recently how my memory over the last decade seem to take a bit of dullness. It wasn’t hitting the heights of the 90s or early 2000s. This inspired to research more about the brain, memory and learning. So here are my lessons on how to improve your memory, backed by science!

You can download the little memory guide here:

We’ve been talking about fibre all wrong

Fibre. Singular. That’s the mistake.

We talk about fibre as if it’s a single, monolithic entity, like "protein" or "money"...as if eating one type of fibre checks the box and we can all go home feeling smug about our gut health.

But that’s like saying “I take vitamins” and leaving it at that.

You wouldn’t pop a single vitamin C tablet and assume you’ve covered all bases. Vitamins are a broad category of essential nutrients, each with distinct roles. You wouldn’t expect vitamin D to do what vitamin B12 does, or vitamin A to step in for vitamin K.

Yet, this is exactly how we treat fibre; as if one type can cover all the metabolic, digestive, and microbiome-supporting functions that our bodies need.

FibreS (plural), because one is never enough

Fibre isn’t just one thing. It’s an entire category of indigestible carbohydrates, and each type serves a different role in your gut, metabolism, and overall health. Yes, they overlap in benefits, but each is unique.

Example: Beta-Glucans 

Found in oats, barley, and mushrooms. This stuff forms a gel in your gut, slowing glucose absorption = good for blood sugar. It also helps to lower LDL cholesterol by binding bile acids. It also supports immune function (by boosting macrophage activity)

Another example is psyllium husk 

Partially soluble, partially insoluble = double-action; thus creates bulk for stool, preventing constipation. Unlike beta-glucans, doesn’t significantly alter cholesterol but can be amazing for IBS

No One Fibre Can Do It All

Imagine a person who eats 30g of fibre a day… but all from spinach.
That’s like someone getting their entire vitamin intake from oranges.

Sure, they’d get some nutrients, but they’d be missing out on essential compounds that other plants provide. A spinach-exclusive diet means they’d lack prebiotic-resistant starch, beta-glucans, mucilaginous fibres, and fermentable oligosaccharides that help diversify the microbiome and regulate metabolism.

The solution? Eat a variety of plants. Not just "more fibre"...more types of fibre.

The worst move is to eat zero fibre; think constipation, gut dysbiosis, and metabolic dysfunction.

The second worst move? Getting all your fibre from a single source.

Your gut microbiome thrives on diversity. Starving it of fibre or feeding it just one type is like having a zoo full of pandas but no lions, elephants, or monkeys; not exactly a thriving ecosystem.

So next time you hear someone say, “I eat plenty of fibre”, hit them with: “Which ones?”

P.S as promised for those of you who missed out last week, here is the fibre cheat sheet: PDF

Butter vs. Seed Oils…Fight!

If you’ve spent any amount of time online you would have heard some pretty awful name calling in the direction of seed oils…

Are they bad? Are they good? Or somewhere in the middle…?

There was an interesting and very detailed study (PMID: 40048719) that stalked 221,054 adults for 33 years and researchers discovered some useful findings: 

1. Butter: Eating the most butter (quartile 4) had a 15% higher risk of kicking the bucket vs. butter minimalists. 

2. Plant Oils: Top-tier oil guzzlers enjoyed a 16% lower mortality risk… roughly the life-extension benefit of avoiding cigarette bodegas.

3. Swaponomics: Replacing 10g of butter (a pat the size of a poker chip) with plant oils cuts mortality by 17%. 

But wait! Before you baptize everything in canola oil…

It is true that seed oils (corn, soybean, canola) are Frankenfoods by definition. Extracting oil from seeds isn’t some pastoral hand-cranked affair; it’s a dystopian machine involving hexane solvents, 200°F presses, and enough industrial might to squish a herd of obese elephants. 

Seed oils themselves actually have been linked to heart health benefits but they do also often hitchhike in UPFs—those hyper-palatable creations engineered to hijack your dopamine receptors. Think fast-food fries (swimming in soybean oil), petrol station muffins (canola oil + sugar + regret), even those "healthy" veggie chips (sunflower oil with a side of greenwashing).

Seed oils themselves aren’t the villain… it’s their dirtbag friends. UPFs pack disproportionate amounts of sugar and salt that can bless them with unhealthy properties when over consumed. Blaming seed oils for causing a rise in chronic diseases is like blaming espresso for Starbucks’ pumpkin-spice hegemony.

Even water’s lethal in excess. Seed oils’ high omega-6 content can promote inflammation… if you’re mainlining them like a 1st year medical student on a night out.  But in moderation? Studies show replacing butter with these oils slashes cardiovascular disease risk. Context matters: drizzling olive oil on a salad ≠ deep-frying Oreos in corn oil.

Processing ≠ evil (but it’s complicated)

Let’s not romanticize "natural" fats. Butter is just centrifuged cow juice…hardly a pinnacle of purity. And olive oil? It’s literally fruit slurry squeezed through steel mats. All oils are processed; the question is how and with what.

This is the 2nd best sci-fi book I’ve ever read…

“Children of Time” - Adrian Tchaikovsky

Let’s get this out of the way first… Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time is the kind of sci-fi that makes you want to apologize to every house spider you’ve ever squished with a rolled-up magazine or flip-flop. It’s a sprawling, audacious, and deeply weird masterpiece that asks, what if humans are just the universe’s first draft? Imagine Planet of the Apes, but replace the apes with hyperintelligent spiders,

This book is part evolutionary thriller, part cosmic human roast session. The premise is bleak: humanity, having torched Earth like a newly spawned university student learning how to toast bread, flees aboard a generational ark ship.

Their mission is to find a habitable planet. The problem is, the only habitable terraformed world outside the earth was a biological experiment planet occupied by eight-legged heirs to the galactic throne (special smart spiders who had their intelligence uplifted by a nanovirus which speeds up the evolutionary process)

What follows is less a first-contact story and more a Darwinian dunk contest. While the humans bicker, regress, and hoard resources like post-apocalyptic couponers, the spiders evolve. I won’t give away any more lest I spoil it. This is part 1 of a 3 book series and I’m about to embark on part 2.

Yes, so far this is the second-best sci-fi series I’ve ever read, trailing only Liu Cixin’s Three-Body Problem. In a genre overrun with dystopias, Children of Time is a pretty rare beast: it’s a post-dystopian novel. It’s not about avoiding the end, but asking what…or who…comes after. 

So, is it one of the greatest sci-fi novels ever written? Yes.