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Natural Ways to relieve loose bowels, constipation, indigestion, heartburn, and bad breath. Transcript Pick Dr. Osborne’s Brain
How to relieve loose bowels, constipation, indigestion, heartburn, and bad breath.
Here is the transcript for the video
| Let’s talk today about five strategies for improved digestion and gut function. Now, we talked a little bit about this last week, which was fasting. One of the best kept secrets of restoring gut function is just not eating. Now, fasting, go back and watch the video from last time, fasting is very, very important as giving the gut rest, but the other thing that can be done if your gut is broken and it’s trying to heal, you don’t digest well and every time you eat it hurts, and you have … A lot of people even just drinking a glass of water can create gas and bloating and intestinal discomfort, so with these types of situations, one of the things you can do is to just skip breakfast.
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| A lot of people think breakfast is the most important meal of the day. They think, “Oh gosh, if I don’t eat my breakfast, then I’m not going to … How am I going function for the rest of the day,” but the opposite can actually be true. Me, personally, most mornings I completely skipped breakfast because I find that it bogs me down. I find that eating too early, it stifles my workout and it stifles my thought process. It’s because when you eat, remember when you eat, where does your blood go? Your blood rushes straight to your gut to help you digest that food so your gut is doing work and your brain can’t think, and the rest of your body can’t think. One of the best kept secrets for improving digestion is just to skip a meal.
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| If you don’t feel like eating, don’t eat for eating’s sake because if you do, what can end up oftentimes happening is you overburden your gut for too long a period of time and it’s really, really challenging. If your gut is already broken and you keep asking it to digest, you keep asking it to work, it’s kind of like if you’re coming off of an eight hour day and your boss says, “I want you to stay for another four hours,” so you work another four hours and you’ve worked a twelve hour shift, then he comes to you at the end of twelve hours and says, “Hey, by the way, I want you to work another four hours,” and you’re ready to go home, you’re done, you’re toast, your gut sometimes needs that break too. So the power of fasting can be extremely, extremely helpful for allowing the gut to heal and repair itself.
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| Not putting food in allows it time to be able to do that so it’s okay to skip a meal. It’s okay to skip breakfast. No matter what your grandma might’ve told you, skipping breakfast might be a very, very good idea. Number two, a lot of people when they sit down to eat, their coming, it’s a mad dash from, they’re working with clients at the office or whatever it is, whatever your day is, most of us are super busy so when we go to sit down to eat, we’re not actually sitting down to eat. We’re walking around the house with something in our hand and we’re eating on the go, or we’re eating on the run. We’re asking our body to think, do, be active and digest. It’s a bad idea for the same reason that fasting can be helpful because if gives your gut rest. Eating with intention is extremely important if you want your gut to heal so what does that look like?
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| That means when you sit down to eat, turn off the TV, turn off the news, turn off the radio, turn off anything that is stressing you out to a great degree because stress, it feeds digestion. Remember, stress activates adrenaline, which shuts down your gut and activates your brain and your muscles. Again, all the blood is going to the wrong places and you’re not going to digest your food well when you’re not preparing for the meal, so sitting down and tuning out all the other things that keep you busy is extremely important. One of the things that can be very helpful before the meal is spend about five minutes just deep breathing. What deep breathing does is it activates your parasympathetic nervous system. That’s the side of your nervous system that aids in relaxation and digestion, which is what we want. We want that side to be working.
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| Turn that on before you eat. How do we do that? We deep breathe, so spend several minutes just doing some deep breathing exercises. Fill your belly up, hold it, take about 5 to 6 seconds of a deep breath in, fill your belly, and then breathe it out nice and slow. Take about 3 to 4 seconds breathing that out nice and slow. Do that for a few minutes. It primes your digestion and it primes your mind, and it’s shuts off the part of your nervous system that is supposed to be activating the other issue and it turns on the part of your nervous system that’s supposed to be activating your brain, so breathing before your eating. Focus on your food, not your work. Again, I mentioned this a minute ago, turning off all the other extraneous activities and focus on eating. Eat with intention.
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| Think about all the things that happen when we sit down for a meal. The very first thing that happens that alludes to that meal is our sense of smell is activated. We smell the food and that smell triggers a hormonal cascade that prepares us for digestion, so we have this sense of smell and it needs to be engaged, and it needs to be activated. Then we have the food itself, we’re putting the food into our mouth. Well, what’s the first thing there? Taste. The next thing is we’re tasting the food, whether it tastes bitter or astringent, whether it tastes sweet, whether it tastes salty, whatever that might be. Taste is very, very important. Allowing your body to taste your food and not inhaling your food because when you can taste it, you can sense whether or not that food is good or bad.
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| Often times, I’ve actually had this happen, my wife is the master taster, and she’ll be eating something. She’ll cue in after just the first bite, “This isn’t any good. There’s something wrong with this food. There’s something wrong with it. It sat out too long or it just wasn’t fresh.” Your sense of taste gives you an idea of whether your food is safe or not so allow your sense of taste to work, allow your sense of taste to do its job, to warn you about the food or to welcome that food in. Then we have chewing, the action of chewing. Think about chewing as, a lot of people just eat their food. When I was in the military, when I was in the Air Force, one of the things we had to do is we had to eat in five minutes. They didn’t give us time to eat so when I came out of the military, I had to relearn how to chew my food because I would just literally inhale it and I wouldn’t digest it very well.
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| Your teeth are designed to break your food down so that your stomach and your intestines don’t have to work quite as hard, so chew your food thoroughly. Spend time chewing your food. Chewing also releases amylase, which is an enzyme that helps you break your food down. Chewing, again, it’s a very, very important part of the experience of eating, and it helps to activate and turn on the lower part of your stomach and your intestines to get them ready to digest. So if you don’t chew thoroughly, then your stomach and intestines aren’t already when the food hits them. Then you have a harder time digesting it. Remember, when we don’t digest our food, typically it tends to ferment. That means it rots in your gut creating gas and bloating and intestinal discomfort, and potentially backing you up or creating diarrhea, so chew your food.
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| Then after the meal, let’s talk about the fifth strategy. The fifth strategy being when the meal is done, now it’s not time to rush off to work or a workout or something major. Now it’s time to do what the Mexicans do so well, the name siesta, the term implies a nap. They take a nap, so they continue to rest while there gut is using all the blood to help digest their food. The nap itself, or the siesta if you will, is an important post meal element because now you want to relax and let that food digest. Some of you may be saying, “Well, I have heartburn. How do I take a nap because if I eat and I lie down, it’s all just going to come back up.” For those of you who are struggling with heartburn as part of the problem, if you do those first four steps, you’ll go a long way to alleviating that heartburn but you can also use a wedge pillow so that you’re elevated to a certain extent. You can still take a nap as you’re beating back that heartburn.
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| Now, those five strategies, again eat when you’re hungry and that fasting is okay, that’s a strategy. Breathing before you eat, number two. Number three, focus on your food, not your work, not extraneous stressors. Number four, relax and chew your food and chew it thoroughly. Then number five, take a nap. Now, I know those sound like, “No duh, Dr. Osborne. No kidding. That’s just basics of eating.” Okay, it is basics of eating, but how many of you actually do it? I could bet you could probably go through that list and say, “I’m not doing two, three or four of those things.” You know to do them but you don’t do them. Knowledge without action is wasted, so now you have the knowledge. You’ve been reminded, go back and apply this in such a way where you’re going to set yourself up for success when you’re eating.
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| Now, some of you also have food allergies. Some of you have gut infections. Some of you have different things going on in your G.I. tract, which could also be hindering or damaging your body’s capacity to digest your food but these are common sense. These are the five things that if you’re not doing from the common sense perspective, they’re foundational, and if you’re not doing foundational, you could change your food, you could avoid allergens. You can take certain supplements, you can take digestive enzymes, you can take probiotics, all of those things, but if you’re not addressing the fundamental aspects of how you’re supposed to eat, then it isn’t going to happen for you. Again, I’m belaboring this point on purpose because how many of you are actually applying those five techniques consistently across the board or how many of you actually make excuses every day in your life to not do those things because you’re in a hurry or you’re in a rush?
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| Remember when it’s time to eat, it’s not time to work. Remember when it’s time to eat, it’s time to eat so focus on eating. Be attentive. It’s just like other aspects in our life. Most people are so attentive to their cell phones so that when they’re talking to somebody, they’re looking at their phone. Be in the moment. Part of when you eat is being in the moment of eating and not being in the moment of something else or 10 other things that are going on that aren’t eating. Again, make sure that you’re applying those five very, very simple things.
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| Now let’s talk and dive into a little bit of the strategies on what you should understand to a certain extent. You should understand some of these things. Now, I talked about … Adding a picture up there for you to look at. Many of you are on medications. Medications can have major, major effects on your G.I. tract, on your digestion, etc. so I’m putting this diagram back up as a reminder. If you go GlutenFreeSociety.org, there’s an entire video post on explaining what this diagram is. You can also visit my channel on YouTube at [Glutenology 00:10:52] and you can watch that very same video. In this video, what I’m talking about, I talk about how drugs can cause dry mouth, which makes it harder for you to digest your food, how drugs can disrupt your taste, your ability to smell, which can affect the foods that you choose.
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| I talk about how some of the medications can slow down your gut motility creating constipation, especially pain medications. Talk about drugs like antibiotics and how they can disrupt your [inaudible 00:11:19]. Remember your good bacteria, your microbiome helps you digest your food so if you’ve wiped it out with a dose of antibiotics and you’re not thinking about probiotics and supporting your guts health back in the other direction, you can run into some major problem so remember if you’re on medicines, you want to understand that those medicines can have a major impact on your gut. Again, depending on which medicines you’re on, look at them, have a conversation with your doctor. First watch this video because if your doctor is like most people’s doctor, he’s probably not going to know a lot about this kind of stuff but take this diagram to him.
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| It has the references at the bottom so if he looks at you and laughs at you and says, “Oh, these medicines aren’t going to effect your diet or your food that much,” take it and make him read the references and have that conversation. Force that conversation because there may be other options in medications or there may be other natural alternatives or options that you could do as opposed to being on a drug that might be affecting your G.I. function so don’t just … I guess you want to have that conversation with your prescribing doctor but don’t just take his word at it. Take that evidence over to him and make sure that he understands what you need.
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| So many other things that … I’m going to punch this up there. This is what I call the Four Horsemen in the G.I. Apocalypse. A lot of people struggle because of what they’re doing and what they’re eating, and they’re eating what everyone else is eating and realize that almost everyone is struggling to a certain point digestion. So just because everyone else is doing it and struggling doesn’t make it normal and it doesn’t make it okay for you have to struggle either, but these are four very, very big factors here that can create major, major disruption in the G.I. tract. Again, I’ve talked about medications, things like antibiotics, things like antacids, things like pain medications, that can really disrupt the function but in addition, there is gluten.
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| Those of you who … Hopefully that’s not a new concept to you. Hopefully if you’ve been following me for any length of time, you get gluten, you understand that that is a no-no. Any grain for that matter is a big no-no. Those seeds, which is what grains are, basically they’re seeds of the grass and those glutens found within those seeds are known to hinder digestion. They’re known to slow it down. They’re known to cause leaky guts. If you’re struggling with G.I. problems and you haven’t cut grains out yet, big mistake. I don’t care if you’re … There was a question earlier and it was, “Hey, I eat grains sometimes and I’m still struggling.” Yeah, don’t eat grain sometimes. Get serious about your gut health because they will shut down your gut. That’s what they do, that’s what they’re good at. That’s what they’ve been trained by mother nature to do is to impede your ability to digest the seed of the grain so they can come out in your poop because your poop is fertilizer and that seed wants to get onto the ground with fertilizer around it so that it can grow more grass.
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| It doesn’t want to be your food. I promise you that’s the way they work, so keep the grain out. The GMOs, the genetically modified organisms, you want to keep those out. Why? Because GMOs, not only are they designed to survive better, that means surviving in your gut passage better, they are typically doused with lots of different pesticides that are known to trigger leaky gut, that are known to disrupt biochemistry in your G.I. tract, that are known to disrupt your microbiome. You don’t want those things in your gut. You’ve got to eat real food. GMO is not real food.
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| Now, there are a lot of people out there talking about how safe GMOs are. There is ample evidence, more than ample evidence, in the damage that GMO foods can cause. If you’re new to that topic or you’re new to that thought process, I would encourage you, there’s a great book called Seeds of Deception, go read it, Seeds of Deception. It’s a fantastic book. You can learn a little bit more about why GMO is actually not safe for you and you want to consider removing it completely from your life 100%.
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| Okay, one of the other things, we talk about food additives. There’s a number of food additives. Let me move that one down out of the way. There we go, food additives. One of the big ones is meat glue. I talked about this a while back in a comprehensive article but meat glue. Meat glue is this MTG. MTG stands for Microbial Transglutaminase. This is a substance that’s used to piece meat parts together. So if you’re going to a fast food restaurant and think you’re getting a chicken breast, think again. It’s chicken bits that have been glued together with an enzyme, an industrial enzyme, produced in a petri dish so that it’s basically designed to save restaurateurs money, but meat glue isn’t just used in meat. It’s oftentimes called meat glue, but it’s not just used in meat.
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| Meat glue can be used in dairy products. It can be used as a thickening agent, and in different kinds of gums and things. Oftentimes we’ll get some of the milks and dairy, but again, dairy products, creamers and things of that nature will also have meat glue. Lots of your processed food, if you go eat sushi and you get the fake crab meat for example, you’re eating a ton of meat glue. Now, what does MTG do? It actually works like gluten. A lot of research studies have shown that those with gluten sensitivity highly react to Microbial Transglutaminase, and so if you don’t have your diet and your food dialed in, and have the meat glue dialed out, you could still be struggling with gut problems as a result of that, even though you are eating gluten-free.
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| Again, don’t eat foods with MTG, or meat glue. It’s bad news. If you want to read more about it, go to DoctorPeterOsborne.com. I’ve got a great, great piece, an in depth piece, on that very topic. Now let’s plug this up here. This is what I call the five barriers to the G.I. tract. A lot of people struggle with gut health because these barriers are broken. Your five primary barriers, the first one is called your GALT, your Gastro-Associated Lymphoid Tissue. Your GALT is the immune system basically. It’s a representation … it’s like tonsils that wrap around your small intestine. It represents about 70 to 80% of your entire immune function and it’s there in your gut to protect you from what you eat because even when you eat, remember eating is warfare. Eating just because you’re eating doesn’t mean …
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| Well, let me rephrase that. Every time you put something in your mouth, it’s you versus that something. Your gut has to be strong enough and resilient and adaptive enough to break that thing down so that you can get the nutrients from it and expel the waste but not take on the damage because many foods that we eat, even the healthiest of foods, contain bacteria, contain viruses, contain parasites, contain chemical plant-based toxins that many aren’t that good for us, but our guts are capable and adept at handling them so as long as our guts are healthy, we can still eat those foods and processed those foods. If your GALT is overwhelmed, in essence if you’ve been getting exposure to GMOs, and meat glue, and glutens and food preservatives and additives and dyes, and you’re bombarding your gut every time you sit down for a meal, and you’re giving it more work to do than what it’s capable of processing or handling, then you’re going to overwhelm your GALT.
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| Of course, you don’t want that to happen. You don’t want to overwhelm your GALT. One of the other barriers is something called a Tight Junction. These are like the little snaps in between your gut cells. Your gut is lined by a single layer of cells, and there are little [anchoring 00:18:49] proteins in between those cells that keep those cells tightly compacted and compressed together so that nothing leaks through your gut into your immune system. Remember, your GALT is right behind the Tight Junctions. If anything does leak through, that’s what’s bombarding your immune system. So a number of different things can cause leaky gut. Probably the most well-studied is gluten, but bacteria and other kinds of infectious microorganisms can cause a leaky gut.
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| Plastics, like BPA, you’ve heard about all the BPA, the BPA plastics, BPA water, free water bottles, etc. Well, it’s not just BPA. It’s the other BPs as well. Bisphenol is not good for your gut. Parabens aren’t good for your gut. Phthalates are not good for your gut. These are all toxins and compounds that we get exposure to when we eat or drink out of plastics, even BPA-free plastics, so avoid doing those things to avoid creating a major gut dysfunction. Antibiotics and antacids, we mentioned the medicines earlier, those can all contribute to a leaky gut. A number of medications can. Aspirin, Ibuprofen, Naproxen, Celebrex, all those different types of medications can contribute to a leaky gut, so think about that the next time you’re thinking about popping something. Is it necessary? If you’re taking something chronically ask yourself why you’re taking it and what the potential implication long-term are on those Tight Junctions.
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| Then we have the next barrier, which is your mucosal barrier. This is a layer of snot. Basically, your gut produces mucus as a physical barrier to protect you from your food, so it’s kind of like a sealant that goes over your cells that protect your cells. A lot of medications can erode that mucus. Again, I mentioned a minute ago, Ibuprofen, Aspirin, Celebrex, and Naproxen, Mobic, these are different medications that are known to cause erosion of the mucosal lighting in the G.I. tract. So again, if you’re using those on a consistent or regular basis, what you’re going to end up with is you’re going to end up with that third barrier, that mucosal barrier, being the rodent.
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| Inside that mucosal barrier, you make an antibody called IgA, secretory or secretory IgA. This is like handcuffs of the gut. They police anything that your body perceives as an enemy, the IgA binds to it like handcuffs so that you can poop it out. If you don’t make adequate IgA or your protein are malnourished or you’ve been fighting your food for so long that your antibody levels in your gut are suppressed or diminished, you can run into a lot of problems so we’ve got to keep your IgA strong. Many people who have chronic illness actually have an antibody efficiency in their gut. This can be measured. This can be measured very easily with a stool test. If you have that deficiency, one of the best things that you can do is take an antibody formulae, have something called an ultra-immune IgG. I have two different versions.
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| I have a colostrum-based version, which is made from colostrum, and I have another one, which is a serum-based version, which is for those of you who have dairy problems. You can use a serum-based version, which is serum-derived. Both of the formulas contain high levels of antibodies to help your gut come back online, to protect your gut while you’re trying to change your diet and change your lifestyle to improve your gut function. Then the fourth barrier is your microbiome, the good bacteria. Think about that the next time you’re faced with an antibiotic.
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| If the doctor ever prescribes you an abiotic but they’re not sure whether or not you have a bacterial infection, this is a question you want to ask, “Hey, doc. Won’t this antibiotic destroy my gut flora? Isn’t that dangerous for me in the long run? Doesn’t that increase my risk for yeast overgrowth, or yeast infection? Won’t that create a potential issue for my gut after the antibiotic?” Look, there’s nothing wrong with taking an antibiotic if you need it, but if you don’t need it and the doctor is guessing at an infection you don’t really have a bacterial infection, and then you take an antibiotic, it’s not going to do you any good but it could do you great harm.
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| Then the fifth barrier is your stomach acid. The stomach acid kills germs. It wipes out potential life-threatening germs, microorganisms that aren’t supposed to inhabit your lower intestine. If you suppress your acid with Tums and Rolaids and Nexium and Prilosec, and some of these other medications, you’re going to end up with a major, major problem. The other issue is, when you suppress your acid, you suppress your digestion. Remember acid is necessary to break down meat. A lot of people that are taking antacids, what happens when they eat meat is that meat just rots in the gut and it changes their microbiome, and it creates all kinds of problems that will cause gut disruption and gut dysfunction. Keep all of those things in mind, in that we want to maintain those five barriers at all times.
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| Now, I’m going to talk about two more things today. One is, this question comes in a lot, what are the best supplements to support G.I. health or gut health? If I could only pick a handful, this is the handful, this handful I’m going to tell you right now, or if I could only pick a few, this is what I would pick if I were guessing. Now in my patients, I don’t ever guess, but again, for those of you who aren’t my patients, those of you who are just listening trying to figure this out and haven’t yet started working with a doctor, these are going to be the top ones that you can attempt. They can be very, very effective and very, very helpful at gut restoration.
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| Number one is a strong probiotic. It’s got to be strong. If it’s not at least 100 billion in total, then you might be missing the mark. I have something called Ultra-Biotic Defense, which is extremely strong. It’s about 400 billion and for many people, it’s what’s necessary to get their G.I. tract repopulated and back online. A strong probiotic is very important. Now, also eat probiotic-based foods. That’s important too. I like non-sugar fermented probiotics, meaning not the [inaudible 00:24:38], not the yogurts. Those are, they use genetically modified sugar for those bacteria to ferment your food. We don’t want GMOs in our food, so you want to have [salt 00:24:48]-based fermented foods like sauerkraut. You can get fermented carrots, or fermented cauliflower. Those are good options.
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| Okay, the next supplement I recommend is L-glutamine. L-glutamine is the amino acid that fuels your gut cells, but it’s particularly your [interasite 00:25:05]. Every other cell in your body requires glucose for energy but your [interasites 00:25:10], your small intestinal cells, require L-glutamine for their fuel source. That’s why so many functional doctors recommend it. It’s very, very crucial and have very, very critical nutrients that help repair and heal the gut. The third is digestive enzymes. Many of you who’ve been gluten sensitive and you’ve been eating gluten your whole life, and you’re just discovering this, you’ve wrecked your gut. You’ve wrecked your [brush border 00:25:31]. You’re not producing digestive enzymes very effectively.
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| As a result, you need support and so taking a supportive digestive enzyme while your gut is trying to heal and repair can be extremely helpful, especially those of you who travel, and you’re eating food that somebody else prepares, and you don’t really know whether it’s got gluten in it or not. It says it’s gluten-free. There’s something I recommend called Gluten Shield, and it is a digestive enzyme that is supposed …It is supportive when you’re traveling, help prevent you from creating a major problem. Okay, those of you who have low stomach acid, many of you do, especially if you’re over the age of 50, we get gastric atrophy in a lot of patients, meaning in their gut, their stomach lining starts to shrink and don’t produce as much acid.
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| Then many of you with chronic illness have had the damage to your parietal cells. Those are the cells in your stomach that pump out acid, or you’re on an antacid. Many of you are on antacids, and you’re on antacids not because your stomach acid is high but because your stomach acid is low and you’ve been misdiagnosed. Betaine hydrochloride, I use something called Ultra Acid, can be very, very effective to take before you eat. Take it before you eat with acid on your stomach so that the food going in has acid to help you digest it. Some people will also use apple cider vinegar because it has acidic properties and it can also help with digestion.
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| Magnesium, many of you with constipation, especially have gut-wrenching where you don’t have good smooth peristaltic flow in your G.I. tract, and what’s happening is you’re constipated intermittently. Magnesium is a natural muscle relaxer. Remember, the tube of your gut is a muscle so if you don’t have enough magnesium, that thing is going to lock up and spasm on you. It’s going to make it harder to have bowel movements. Now, magnesium can alleviate constipation in two ways. One, it can act as a muscle relaxer. Two, it can pull more water into your bowel and that helps to push your bowel, so magnesium has a two-pronged effect and it’s very inexpensive, very safe, and very, very effective for that help.
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| One of my other, my fifth, and actually my sixth favorite is vitamin C. I like powdered vitamin C better than pills because you absorb it better, especially if you’re having problems breaking down pills in your gut. I use something called Detox C, and it’s a powdered, pure ascorbate, not derived from corn. It’s very important you understand that many vitamin C products are corn-based, and so not good, not safe. You want something that is not corn-based. So what vitamin C can do is it actually can help calm down and support natural control over inflammation in an inflamed gut. Vitamin C has been shown in celiacs to be one of the rate limiting steps in their healing. There was a study done several years ago that found out celiacs, many of the refractory celiacs that wouldn’t heal was because they didn’t have vitamin C.
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| When they gave them vitamin C, they actually began to heal so it’s one of my favorite. I see it work in the clinic on a regular basis, so those are the six stop. Again, from the top, a strong probiotic, L-glutamine, digestive enzymes, particularly Gluten Shield if you’re gluten sensitive and you’re traveling, magnesium and vitamin C. Those are the best of the best if we only had a few to pick from. Those of you who are looking for gluten-free versions, just go visit GlutenFreeSociety.org and you can tap in. Now, today I’ve had my team set up a coupon for any of you who want to order any of those certified gluten-free types of supplements. Just use the promo code … What did we call it? Healthy Gut. Use the promo code Healthy Gut and it’ll save you $15 on your order, so that’s just a gift to those of you listening today who, if you want to go back and pick some of those things up, if you need some of those things, save that money today, just a gift to say thank you for tuning in to the show.
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| Now, I’m going to turn my attention to the questions. Boy, do we have a lot of questions that are coming in. Let’s see. Lulu, boy that’s a long question. Lulu’s asking, “What’s my advice for somebody who’s tried everything to heal leaky gut including glutamine, not eating GMOs, an all organic diet, a low carb gluten-free, nearly grain free …” There you go. Nearly grain free is not enough. Get the grain out. I just mentioned that earlier. “Also taking collagen supplements.” Collagen can be hard to digest. A lot of people eat collagen powders and proteins, and it can be very helpful but for some people, it can be really hard to digest, so you may be one of those, Lulu. You might either consider watering it down, using less of it, or just taking it out for a while and seeing if that somewhat helps you.
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| I’ve seen a lot of patients not be able to recover because they were using too much collagen. The other thing for you, Lulu, is this. Get your doctor to test your nutritional status. Your gut, 60% of your nutrition for your gut comes from the food that you eat and if your gut was wrecked for a good part of your life, the reality is, is it’s not going to heal because it’s not been nourished, so you may be deficient in things like zinc. You may be deficient in nutrients like calcium or magnesium or selenium. Very, very critical nutrients to help you heal and repair and if you don’t have them, you won’t, so that’s a strategy that I would definitely check out.
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| Susan’s just saying hello from Washington. Hi Susan, thanks for joining us. Let’s see here. “Should we avoid dairy?” Great question. Yes is the simple answer. Dairy, in terms of epidemiological research, where we studied dairy in large populations, we see it increased the risk for multiple types of cancers, so just from the premise of that alone I would say yeah, keeping dairy out is probably a smart idea. Dairy, much of the processed dairy that are on the grocery store shelves, it’s not, in my opinion, it’s not even real food. It’s so highly processed, full of hormones. They feed the cows horrendously. They treat the cows horrendously.
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| There’s a premise, you are what you eat, but you also are what you eat eats. When you’ve got all those cows that are being force-fed corn that’s genetically modified, it’s full of pesticides and they are keeping them pumped up with hormones, that’s just not healthy for you. Aside from that, let’s say you’re eating the best raw grass-fed Jersey cow, non-GMO dairy, humans lose their ability to digest dairy around the age of two so if you’re an adult thinking you need to eat dairy to get your calcium, think again. It’s just not the case.
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| Okay, do I have a DNA food sensitivity test to recommended? That’s coming from Linda. Not at this point. There’s not a great one. 23andMe does a really good job of telling you about certain risk factors you might have and how to change your behaviors or your lifestyle to accommodate your genes better, but there’s not a great food one. The couple of different ones … I will type those in here. Let’s see. Hang on. Just a second. Okay, I’m sorry. Let’s see here. Let me comment down below. Okay, so one of those is called HLA-DQ and the other is HLA-B27. You can have it … I’m going to put that in the comments. You can have those testings done. HLA-DQ is going to tell you, HLA-DQ, alpha-1 and beta-1 are going to tell you about gluten. HLA-B27 is going to give you inside into nightshades, whether or not you have a genetic pattern that’s going to have a tendency to react to nightshades. That’s about all we have for genetic linkages to eating certain types of food or not.
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| Although some would argue that blood typing is a genetic marker that can also be used to help people identify what they should or shouldn’t eat. For that information, you can read, there’s a great book called Eat Right For Your Type by Peter D’Adamo, super smart doc. Anyway, that’s what I would recommend that you do. Let’s see here. “Can you eat goat’s milk cheese or feta when trying to avoid cows?” No, I don’t recommend those other ones. Not good because the proteins are too similar. Okay. Caroline Kavanagh, “What if you eat three hours before your morning training session?” Yeah. Again, this is a personal thing. It’s not that you can’t eat in the morning. It’s that if your gut is broken and you feel bad, that’s where the trouble comes. That’s where people get into trouble, generally speaking.
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| Just a second. Okay. Sorry. I had to respond to a text. That was rude of me, but I’m out of town traveling right now and I’m expecting some communication. Anyway, the question being, “Is it okay to eat before you train?” Yes, it’s okay, provided … Three hours is a good window because it gives you time to digest your food before you go train. A lot of people say, “Eat right before you train.” It’s a bad idea because if you train aggressively, like high intensity interval, that actually is one of the causes of leaky gut. You’ve got all that food on your stomach and now you’re forcing all your blood away from your stomach to exercise and you’re inducing a leaky gut. Now that food is just, has that possibility that it’s just going to trickle through. Again, wait to exercise after you eat. Caroline, to answer your question, that’s a good timeframe to wait.
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| Let’s see here Susan DeJong is asking, “I have GERD. I have a problem associated with it that I can’t find information about. Sometimes when I’m taking my supplements with a meal, it gets stuck halfway down. Then it feels like my gag reflex is triggered and I have to throw up. Stomach contents don’t come up, but volume of mucus. Any ideas what happens?” Yeah, your sympathetic nervous system is on an overdrive. You’ve got to meditate. You’ve got to deep breathe. You’ve got to pray. You’ve got to do everything you can to calm down your sympathetic stimulation, your adrenaline before you’re getting ready for that meal or getting ready to eat. One of the things that you can do too is take powdered magnesium, not in the pill form. If you’ve got the pill, like you’re using my magnesium, [Ultra-MG 00:36:43], just break that pill open and stir it in water and drink it. You won’t get that sensation, but magnesium, remember, it relaxes. It calms, it relaxes, so it’s going to get your gut focused on relaxation before digestion.
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| Okay. Tina, I’m not sure. I understand your question. Try to type something in a little more concise. You’ve got a lot of commentary there but I’m not sure I understand what your question is. It’s hard for me to comment when I don’t understand. Let’s see. “How long should a person take probiotics?” Great question. There’s not a right answer. There’s not a forever or a lack of forever. I’ve had patients that have to take them 3, 4+ years. They have to continue to use them because there … This is one of the mysteries in science. We don’t know everything. With probiotics, there are some doctors now doing implants with probiotics rectally, meaning inserting probiotics through the rectum, but what we’re finding is it works really, really well for a period of time but then months go by and it loses its effectiveness.
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| One of the challenges is repopulating the gut with healthy bacteria once it’s been destroyed, so I would say take probiotics as long as you find that they’re beneficial for you. Eat probiotic-rich food and put your hands in the dirt. Make sure that you’re getting exposure to dirt because being outside, having a pet, all that, those are natural ways that we’re going to get microorganisms that can be helpful. It’s going to help populate your gut and populate your microbiome.
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| Okay. Leslie is asking, “Is fasting recommended for children still growing?” Yes. [Rumor 00:38:37] of fasting doesn’t mean eating less calories. Fasting just means not eating as frequent, so fasting is not a calorie restricted diet for growing kids. It’s just a restricted timeframe of eating so keep that in mind. Also, what do I know about Specific Carbohydrate Diet? “We’re trying it for my son. He’s slowly gaining weight where he was not gaining weight before. We’re also taking your supplements.” SCD is a pretty good. It’s more about what a person is capable of digesting. That’s what the SCD diet is based on is what is a person, as an individual, capable of digesting. Some people don’t do well with certain carbohydrates. They’re harder to digest than others, so the SCD twist on the diet works pretty good for individuals who have got damage in those situations. Good question.
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| What is my opinion of the low FODMAP diet, especially for scleroderma? FODMAP is, low FODMAP, for those of you who don’t know, it’s Fermentable, Oligo-, Mono-poly, Fructose, Mony, … Let me rephrase that. FODMAP is Fructo-, Oligo-, Di-, Mono-, and [Poly-saccharides 00:39:44]. These are hard to digest carbohydrates and so a low FODMAP diet would mean eliminating or reducing the quantity of those types of carbohydrates that you’re eating. I think it’s a good strategy. It can be a very good strategy. It’s not the right diet for everyone, and I usually make that determination with a patient on a one-on-one basis, but if you’re struggling with your gut and you’ve already gone grain-free and you’re still struggling, introducing a low FODMAP diet as an option might be helpful.
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| [Janine 00:40:18] is saying, “Happy Friday.” Happy Friday right back at you, Janine. Let’s see, “How do you avoid meat glue? It isn’t on food label that I have ever seen.” Doris, avoid meat glue by eating real food. It’s the only way you can do it. Eating real food from food sources that you trust. It’s only way you can avoid it because you can’t trust restaurants and you can’t trust a lot of the food manufacturers. They’re putting that in there and they’re not putting it on the label, so you eat real food. Okay. I’ve got a lot more questions coming in, but I’ve got to stop today and I will pick this back up next week because we’ve got about 50 more questions. I’ll try to have my team members get on there and help answer some more of these. On that note, maybe we can have Healthy Gut: Part Two next week because there’s so many questions.
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| I’m very open to that. If you think that’s a great idea, what I want you to do is just type in #healthygut into the Facebook feed now, and I’m going to either have a part two next week or I’m not. It’s going to depend on your and my loyal audience’s feedbacks. If you want to continue this conversation, type in #healthygut and we’ll weigh the responses. Just as a friendly reminder, make sure that you’re sharing and that you’re liking and sending us the snapshot of your screens so that we can pick a winner for our door prizes. I’ve got lots of door prizes I want to give away to you guys, but we’re not going to do it unless you play by the rules, so send us your screenshots of your shares so we can give away tons of free wonderful stuff to you.
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| You just send those to glutenology@gmail.com, glutenology@gmail.com is the address you want to send that over to so that we can pick all of our winners for next week. I plan on giving away a lot of stuff next week, but I have to have you guys participating in the competition. Remember, if you want to save $15 at Gluten Free Society, use the promo code Healthy Gut. There are two categories that this coupon code works for. In one category, the supplement section is the leaky gut category. The other is the digestive health category, so any shopping that you do in either two of those categories are going to save you $15. I want you to have a great, great weekend. This is Dr. Osborne signing off. We will see you next time.
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