04/11/2025
One Doctor Drank Bacteria. I Just Burned the Broccoli 🥦
Darcy is forever self-experimenting and I am constantly reminding him that one person (n=1) does not prove a hypothesis. Interestingly, though, many great discoveries have been made through self-experimentation 🧪.
One of the most famous examples is the work of Australian physicians, Dr Barry Marshall and Dr Robin Warren. Marshall used his own body to test a medical hypothesis, overturning decades of medical dogma.
Marshall and Warren conducted investigations into the spiral-shaped bacterium, later identified as Helicobacter pylori, in patients with gastritis and peptic ulcers.
The thinking during the eighties was that gastric ulcers were caused by stress and other lifestyle factors, whereas Marshall and Warren hypothesised that a microorganism was the cause.
Reviewers rejected their scientific papers and their attempts to infect animal models failed; no lab animal would reliably develop gastritis from the bacterium 🐁.
So, how to prove their hypothesis?
In July 1984, Marshall swallowed a broth culture of Helicobacter pylori derived from a human patient to become infected. He said:
“I went home and told my wife about it, and of course, she was like, ‘Oh, my God, you're gonna infect the whole family. That's why you've got such bad breath. This is a disaster.’ ”
He then monitored his symptoms: nausea, vomiting, acute gastritis and took gastric biopsies. The biopsies revealed the bacterium adhering to his stomach lining.
The scientific community reacted with scepticism and even ridicule. Gastroenterologists dismissed the idea of a bacterial cause as “crazy” or “impossible.” When Marshall and Warren first presented their findings, one reviewer wrote,
“This is the most preposterous thing I have ever heard.”
The tide slowly shifted; there were enough people who listened and began to use antibiotic treatments to treat stomach ulcers successfully.
By the 1990s, Helicobacter pylori was accepted as the leading cause of ulcers. In 2005, Marshall and Warren received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery.
Marshall and Warren clearly knew what they were doing💡. I am not advocating that anyone swallow ulcer-producing bacteria in the name of science, but I have been conducting some of my own self-experimentation.
In the past, when I wrote about improving breathing, some of you suggested that I read the book "Breath" by James Nestor. I am finally doing that (it's a great read; I recommend it).
I have suffered from poor sleep, connected with anxiety, for many years, so my interest in this is highly motivated. As I read the book, I began gently experimenting with some unexpected results.
The first time I undertook breathing exercises to slowly increase my carbon dioxide levels (slower, longer breathing, four counts to six, with an extended exhale), I was sitting in my chair, reading my book. I woke up half an hour later, book in my lap after an unexpected nap. Delicious!
The next day, I experimented with controlled breathing to a meditative track. I became so entranced that it took the smell of burning vegetables to bring me out. Dinner that night was broccoli and cauliflower crisps!
My learning points:
✅ Like Barry Marshall, you don’t have to accept conventional wisdom when it comes to your health. His experiment reminds us that progress begins with curiosity and a little courage to test the status quo. You don’t need a lab coat or a Nobel Prize to learn from your body. Sometimes the best data comes from your lived experience, one breath (or charred dinner) at a time.
✅ If you have been grappling with issues like poor breathing or poor sleep, don’t just accept the status quo and rely solely on an overburdened medical system. Conduct your own research and understand that even small changes can have a significant impact on your health. I have been sleeping rather well since my breathwork experimentation!
✅ Your body, even as you age, is remarkably adaptable, and it is just that - your body, your life, to do what you can to improve your outcomes.
To finish with some inspiration, here is a quote from Marshall after their Nobel prize win:
“We couldn't knock down our own hypothesis. That's the thing, be critical of your own data, and then go with the data. And once you've got a pathway, and you're getting facts, then it doesn't matter how many people there are out there who don't believe you. Science is not a democracy.”
Photo: Nobel Prize winners (2005): The late Dr James Warren (left) and Barry Marshall.
