307 - Jeff Leach (Microbiome Expert / Anthropologist)
Tangentially Speaking with Christopher Ryan
Chris Ryan
4.8 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 26 February 2018
⏱️ 102 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Like millions of people, I first became aware of Jeff Leach when I read about his attempt to transfer a hunter/gatherer's fecal matter to his own colon as a way to study the human microbiome. Little did I know I'd find myself sitting at the table with him in rural Texas a few years later or that he'd agree to share his insights with me on a podcast. Jeff's published in Science, Nature and everywhere else a groundbreaking researcher could dream of, but he's too busy with new projects to reflect much on past success.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Radio Manu, Papa Tzango. |
| 0:02.0 | I'm here in an office in the middle of the fucking desert. |
| 0:26.0 | I'm here in an office in the middle of the fucking desert near Tertelingua, Texas with Jeff Leach, |
| 0:36.0 | an example of why I love traveling and why I love podcasting. This was all totally serendipitous. |
| 0:44.0 | I sort of mentioned in a podcast that went up earlier how we met. |
| 0:50.0 | I don't go through that again. I just love, I've always traveled through my 20s and 30s. One of the reasons I did |
| 0:58.0 | was that I love that feeling of starting a day thinking you're going to do a certain thing. At the end of the day, |
| 1:04.0 | you're in a totally different world with people you didn't know existed. This is a Tertelingua experience. |
| 1:10.0 | It's a great example. Thanks for doing this. You're very busy. |
| 1:14.0 | Thanks Chris. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man. I mean, you're very busy and you're turning down |
| 1:18.0 | interview requests from the New York Times and the BBC and Vice and everybody else. |
| 1:22.0 | So I really appreciate you making time for this little podcast. |
| 1:26.0 | Yeah, you bet. Now looking forward to it. Yeah. Yeah. |
| 1:28.0 | So quick introduction. You, I read about you in your fecal transplant blog post. |
| 1:37.0 | What was that three years ago? Four years ago? I think it was about three years ago. |
| 1:40.0 | I posted that and it kind of skyrocketed and went viral and got quite a bit of tension that wasn't looking for. |
| 1:48.0 | Because that really wasn't the intention. It was kind of just a dump of some ideas and thoughts and didn't think |
| 1:53.0 | it actually anybody would read it. But a couple of a couple of million people did. |
| 1:56.0 | Yeah. And so you've been this fecal transplant and the microbiome and all this isn't even really your main or wasn't your main gig. |
| 2:06.0 | Right? I mean, you sort of stumbled into this. Yeah. Backed into it. I spent, I spent the 1990s digging square holes and round archaeological sites. |
| 2:14.0 | And so throughout the American Southwest. And I'd always had an interest in food and diet and how people prepared food over time. |
| 2:21.0 | I was very interested in that. And so about 15 years ago, my daughter was diagnosed as a type one diabetic, which was pretty devastating as a parent. |
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