Summary & Study Guide - The Mind-Gut Connection: How the Hidden Conversation Within Our Bodies Impacts Our Mood, Our Choices, and Our Overall Health

By Lee Tang

This simple lifestyle change can help you lose weight and decrease the risk of chronic illnesses and neurodegenerative disorders.

This book is a summary of “The Mind-Gut Connection: How the Hidden Conversation Within Our Bodies Impacts Our Mood, Our Choices, and Our Overall Health,” by Emeran Mayer, MD.

For many years, doctors looked at the human body as a complex machine with independent parts. Disease was a breakdown of a single organ or gene that can be fixed through medication or surgery. There was no need to understand its cause. This model has worked for certain acute diseases but failed in treating many chronic and neurodegenerative disorders.
Today, we realize that the complex regulatory mechanisms that keep us healthy do not operate independently. Our brain, our gut, and the gut microbes communicate with one another constantly to keep us healthy. When this communication channel is out of whack, major health problems can result.

In The Mind-Gut Connection, Dr. Emeran Mayer offers a cutting-edge view of the emerging science of gut-brain communication. He teaches us how, with a few changes to our diet and lifestyle, we can lose weight, develop a happier mindset, and reduce the risk of neurological diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

This book redefines what it means to be healthy and provides practical steps to achieve that goal.

This guide includes:
* Book Summary—helps you understand the key concepts.
* Online Videos—cover the concepts in more depth.

Value-added from this guide:
* Save time
* Understand key concepts
* Expand your knowledge

• Language: English
• Publisher: LMT Press
• Release date: May 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781988970202

Lee Tang

Lee Tang is a retired executive of a major global insurance company. Prior to his retirement, he has worked as an actuary, a risk officer and a chief financial officer for several major insurance organizations in the United States, Canada, and Taiwan. To learn more about Lee and his work, visit his website and blog at https://lmtpress.wordpress.com. You can reach him by email at [e-mail].

Book preview

This simple lifestyle change can help you lose weight and decrease the risk of chronic illnesses and neurodegenerative disorders.

The must-read summary of The Mind-Gut Connection: How the Hidden Conversation Within Our Bodies Impacts Our Mood, Our Choices, and Our Overall Health, by Emeran Mayer, MD.

For many years, doctors looked at the human body as a complex machine with independent parts. Disease was a breakdown of a single organ or gene that can be fixed through medication or surgery. There was no need to understand its cause. This model has worked for certain acute diseases but failed in treating many chronic and neurodegenerative disorders.

Today, we realize that the complex regulatory mechanisms that keep us healthy do not operate independently. Our brain, our gut, and the gut microbes communicate with one another constantly to keep us healthy. When this communication channel is out of whack, major health problems can result.

In The Mind-Gut Connection, Dr. Emeran Mayer offers a cutting-edge view of the emerging science of gut-brain communication. He teaches us how, with a few changes to our diet and lifestyle, we can lose weight, develop a happier mindset, and reduce the risk of neurological diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

This book redefines what it means to be healthy and provides practical steps to achieve that goal.

This guide includes:

Book Summary—helps you understand the key concepts.

Online Videos—cover the concepts in more depth.

Value-added from this guide:

Save time

Understand key concepts

Expand your knowledge

Important Note About This Guide

This guide is a summary and not a critique/review of the book. The summary may not be organized chapter-wise but summarizes the book’s main ideas, viewpoints, and arguments. It is NOT meant to be a replacement, but a supplement to help you understand the book’s key ideas and recommendations.

Title: Summary & Study Guide - The Mind-Gut Connection

Subtitle: How the Hidden Conversation Within Our Bodies Impacts Our Mood, Our Choices, and Our Overall Health

Author: Lee Tang

Publisher: LMT Press (lmtpress.wordpress.com)

Copyright © 2019 by Lee Tang

All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.

First Edition: March, 2019

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 9781988970202 (ebook)

ISBN 9781799051336 (paperback)

ISBN 9781987063943 (paperback)

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and author make no representations or warranties regarding the accuracy or completeness of these contents and disclaim all warranties such as warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. The website addresses in the book were correct at the time going to print. However, the publisher and author are not responsible for the content of third-party websites, which are subject to change.

To my wife, Lillian, who is the source of energy and love for everything I do, and to Andrew and Amanda: watching you grow up has been a privilege.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part 1: Our Body, the Intelligent Supercomputer

1. The Mind-Body Connection Is Real

2. How the Mind Communicates with the Gut

3. How Your Gut Talks to Your Brain

4. Microbe-Speak: A Key Component of the Gut-Brain Dialogue

Part 2: Intuition and Gut Feelings

5. Unhealthy Memories: The Effects of Early Life Experiences on the Gut-Brain Dialogue

6. A New Understanding of Emotions

7. Understanding Intuitive Decision Making

Part 3: How to Optimize Brain-Gut Health

8. The Role of Food: Lessons from Hunter-Gatherers

9. The Onslaught of the North American Diet

10. The Simple Road Toward Wellness and Optimal Health

Index

About the Author

Part 1

Our Body, the Intelligent Supercomputer

Chapter 1

The Mind-Body Connection Is Real

For many years, doctors looked at the human body as a complex machine with independent parts. Disease was a breakdown of a single organ or gene that could be fixed through medication or surgery. There was no need to understand its cause. That’s why many doctors were trained to treat symptoms but not the underlying cause of disease.

Today, we are no longer threatened by infectious diseases. Instead, we are seeing previously rare conditions rising to prominence. These conditions include allergies, autoimmune diseases, digestive troubles, mental health problems, and obesity.

Since the 1970s, we've seen a rapid rise in obesity and related metabolic disorders, autoimmune disorders, and neurological diseases in the United States. Although modern medicine has increased our average life expectancy in the past 50 years, we are far behind in physical and mental well-being when we reach the last decades of our lives. This cannot be explained by a single malfunctioning organ or gene. To understand how it works, we must update our model of the human body.

Gut-Brain Axis

For decades, traditional medicine viewed the digestive system as being independent of the brain. According to this view, any malfunctioning of the digestive tract could be bypassed or removed. We now know that the gut and the brain are intricately connected, forming the gut-brain axis. This gut-mind communication is not just psychological. It is hard-wired by the vagus nerves and facilitated by