The Gut-Brain Connection: Anxiety, Depression, and Wellness Fads with Dr. Trisha Pasricha

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Being Well

Education, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.8 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2026

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Forrest is joined by neurogastroenterologist Dr. Trisha Pasricha for a conversation about the gut-brain connection, including how gut health impacts our mood and mental health. Dr. Pasricha explains how the gut and the brain communicate, how early gut experiences can shape adult anxiety and depression, why GI symptoms are often misunderstood or dismissed, and what the research actually says about probiotics, leaky gut, and detoxification. They also discuss simple, evidence-based ways to improve gut health, dispelling social-media fueled myths along the way. About our guest: Dr. Tricia Pasricha is a physician-scientist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and columnist for the Washington Post. Her new book, You've Been Pooping All Wrong, explains the connection between your gut, your brain, and your mental health. Key Topics: 0:00 Intro: what's neurogastroenterology? 5:48: Believing your patient 9:31: The lifelong impact of childhood gut issues 18:27: The relationship between the gut and the brain 23:20: The tiktokification of gut health information 30:56: Probiotics – do they help? 34:15: The microbiome 43:34: Advice to people with gut issues 46:21: What about cleanses? 55:52: Recap Support the Podcast: We're on Patreon! ⁠If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.⁠ Sponsors Go to ⁠Zocdoc.com/BEING⁠ to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to being well. I'm Forrest Hanson. If you're new to the show,
0:10.8	thanks for listening today. And if you've listened before, welcome back. I've been really looking
0:15.8	forward to this episode, where we're going to be focusing on the relationship between the gut and the brain.
0:21.5	Gut issues can be both very uncomfortable for people and quite uncomfortable to talk about,
0:26.6	and that combination means a lot of people end up dealing with them alone,
0:29.9	or turning to whatever the wellness industry happens to be selling at the moment.
0:34.2	There is a huge gap between how important these issues are and how much time we spend talking about them.
0:42.1	And my guest today does a great job of filling that gap in.
0:46.2	Dr. Trisha Pusritsha is a physician scientist at Beth Israel-Decanes Medical Center
0:51.1	and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She's also
0:55.4	the Ask a Doctor columnist for The Washington Post and the author of her new book, You've Been Pooping
1:01.1	All Wrong. The book is one of the best explanations I've read of the science that connects
1:05.4	your gut to your brain, your mood, and your mental health more generally. So Dr. Prus Risha, thanks for joining me today. How are you doing?
1:13.5	Good. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Yeah, I'm really glad to hear that.
1:18.6	I've been really looking forward to this one. This is actually one of the first very physical,
1:23.5	healthy, focused episodes that we've ever done on the podcast. And part of the reason for that
1:27.9	is that there was such like a beautiful connection in your work between the gut and the brain
1:32.2	and maybe just starting there. What's a neurogastroenterologist? Very fair question. So a neuro gastrologist
1:40.3	is a doctor who specializes in the gut-brain connection. As far as specialties go, we're probably
1:45.8	on the newer side, but we've been around for about 20, 30 years. Everybody knows about gastroenterologists,
1:51.0	which are the doctors who study the gut. Everyone knows about neurologists, which are the doctors
1:55.0	who study the brain. And what we do is we usually train first in gastroenterology and then do
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