Episode Details

The Gut-Lung Axis: The Missing Link in Chronic Inflammation & Aging | Dr. Vivek Lal 

Your lungs have a microbiome, and almost no one is talking about it. This episode reveals the hidden pathway behind asthma, chronic inflammation, and slow aging, and gives you a science-backed way to biohack your breath from the inside out.  

Get A generous discount on Resbiotic by going to: https://resbiotic.com/ and using code ‘DAVE20’ 

Host Dave Asprey sits down with Dr. Vivek Lal, MD, FAAP, a double board-certified physician scientist who discovered the gut-lung axis while running the Pulmonary Microbiome Lab at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He serves as Director of Clinical Innovation at UAB's Marnix Heersink Institute of Biomedical Innovation and trained in pulmonary and vascular biology at UT Southwestern before completing MIT's executive program in drug and device development. As a serial entrepreneur through his venture studio Biostack Ventures, he founded and now serves as CEO of Resbiotic Nutrition, and also launched Alveolus Bio, an FDA-track pulmonary drug development company. His decade of research turned into the world's first probiotic built specifically for respiratory health. 

Dave and Vivek break down MMP-9, the overlooked inflammatory pathway that drives collagen breakdown, chronic lung disease, and accelerated aging throughout the body. They cover why germ-free mice outperform normal mice, how antibiotics and toxic mold reshape your lung bacteria for years, why breathwork actually changes your lung microbiome, and how postbiotics and inhaled probiotics could become the next frontier in functional medicine. Along the way they get into supplement formulation, drug development red tape, and why self-experimentation should be treated as a right, not a privilege.  

You'll Learn: 

• What the gut-lung axis is and how gut bacteria control inflammation in your lungs 
• Why MMP-9 may be the next major longevity pathway after sirtuins 
• How antibiotics, toxic mold, and vaping damage your lung microbiome long term 
• Why breathwork and lung training measurably change your lung bacteria 
• How postbiotics and inhaled probiotics could replace inhalers and steroids 
• Why product-level clinical testing matters more than single-ingredient hype 
• How self-experimentation, AI, and personalized data are reshaping medicine  

Thank you to our sponsors!      

- ELITE Performance Coaching | If you’d like to discover where you may be addicted to struggle, allergic to success, and what may be standing between you and your next breakthrough, visit FastestChange.com 

- ZenBud | Dave’s Nervous System Biohack. Visit zenbud.health and use code DAVE15 at checkout for a discount. 

- Caldera + Lab | Go to calroy.com/dave for the research, a discount, and a 45-day money back guarantee. 

- Calroy | Go to calroy.com/dave for the research, a discount, and a 45-day money back guarantee. 

Dave Asprey is a four-time New York Times bestselling author, founder of Bulletproof Coffee, and the father of biohacking. With over 1,000 interviews and 1 million monthly listeners, The Human Upgrade brings you the knowledge to take control of your biology, extend your longevity, and optimize every system in your body and mind. Each episode delivers cutting-edge insights inhealth, performance, neuroscience,