For the past several years in health care, it seems like the "gut" has been on everyone's mind. Pedram has talked at length with various guests about the gut and its processes on this program, but in this episode, he welcomes Dr. Emeran Mayer, a professor of medicine at UCLA, to discuss how the gut isn't just a self-contained system doing its thing automatically. No, Dr. Mayer joins the program to discuss how the mind and its processes can also affect the gut. Dr. Mayer has been the go-to researcher on brain-gut interations for nearly 25 years. What is the mind-gut connection? What role does the mind play in gut health? In what ways can we improve mental and physical health when focusing on the mind-gut connection?