Speaker 1: Hey, besties, Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: Today on the bright Side, it's Wellness Wednesday, So we're
Speaker 2: delving into a fascinating topic, your gut. Did you know
Speaker 2: your gut might just be your second brain. We're exploring
Speaker 2: the ins and outs of gut health and the incredible
Speaker 2: connection between our stomachs and our minds. So joining us
Speaker 2: is doctor Robin Shutkin, a renowned gastro entrologist and author
Speaker 2: of several best selling digestive health books.
Speaker 1: She'll guide us through everything.
Speaker 2: We need to know about nourishing our guts and feeling
Speaker 2: our best. Plus, we'll tackle the big question how safe
Speaker 2: are antibiotics. It's Wednesday, August twenty First, I'm Danielle Robe.
Speaker 3: And I'm Simone Boyce. And this is the bright Side
Speaker 3: from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together
Speaker 3: to share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day.
Speaker 2: Today's Wellness Wednesday is presented by Coligard.
Speaker 3: Okay, Danielle, tell me if you relate to this. I
Speaker 3: find it hard to leave the grocery store these days
Speaker 3: without purchasing at least one gut health product. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm a kumbucha girl. Out the way, there are probiotic Seltzers.
Speaker 3: There's kombucha, probiotic shots, countless supplements. I mean, the list
Speaker 3: goes on. It's honestly overwhelming, and I, for one don't
Speaker 3: necessarily know what's actually effective and what's just effective marketing.
Speaker 2: Do you use any of those gut health products personally?
Speaker 3: I do. I take seed supplements inconsistently, but whenever I
Speaker 3: am consistent with it, I've noticed a difference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I also will.
Speaker 3: I'll throw back like a Biokay probiotics shot that basically
Speaker 3: tastes like spoiled yogurt. I do eat a lot of yogurt,
Speaker 3: which I think is really good for your gut.
Speaker 1: How about you.
Speaker 2: I take Lovebug probiotics. I actually get a lot of
Speaker 2: sinus infections. I feel like everybody gets like one illness
Speaker 2: that pops up over and over again.
Speaker 1: Some people get stripped throat.
Speaker 2: I'm a sinus infection girl, and so I've always taken
Speaker 2: antibiotics to get rid of them, which is so bad
Speaker 2: for your gut health. And so after the antibiotics, I
Speaker 2: take probiotics, and so I just started taking them every day.
Speaker 2: And I have to tell you I've been influenced by
Speaker 2: Gwyneth Paltrow because I looked up which one she recommends,
Speaker 2: and she takes these Lovebug probiotics and you feel like
Speaker 2: it works. Yeah, they really helped my gut health. I
Speaker 2: actually felt bloating after I took antibiotics for a little bit,
Speaker 2: and this really helped.
Speaker 3: I think that's an area that I'm unclear on, is
Speaker 3: how do we know our gut is healthy or not?
Speaker 3: You know, like, what are the signs that we need
Speaker 3: to be paying attention to.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great question, and it's something that
Speaker 2: we're going to get into today because we're talking about
Speaker 2: gut health and we want to look at the science
Speaker 2: and dispel these myths. So Doctor Robin Shutkin is a
Speaker 2: gastro entrologist and author of several digestive health books, including
Speaker 2: Gut Bliss, The Microbiome Solution, and The Blokecure. She's also
Speaker 2: the founder of the Digestive Center for Wellness, a gastroentrology
Speaker 2: practice is dedicated to uncovering the root cause of GI disorders,
Speaker 2: and she's the host of the Gut Bliss podcast. She's
Speaker 2: really talking about our guts.
Speaker 3: Oh, she knows her stuff, So let's bring her in.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the bright Side, Doctor chuck.
Speaker 4: In, Thank you so much, it's so great to be
Speaker 4: with you.
Speaker 2: Well, we're so excited to talk to you today because
Speaker 2: gut health is in the zeitgeist, and I think there
Speaker 2: are very few people that can really break it down
Speaker 2: and explain what gut health means. Now, I want to
Speaker 2: start with something that I've heard around town. I've heard
Speaker 2: that we have three brains. We have the one in
Speaker 2: our head, one in our heart, and there's actually a
Speaker 2: third brain in our gut.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, the second brain. You're talking about the enteric
Speaker 4: nervous system. And fun fact, we have about seven times
Speaker 4: as many nerve cells in our gut as we have
Speaker 4: in our spinal cord. Now, we don't have as many
Speaker 4: as we have in our central nervous system. But the
Speaker 4: second brain is a real thing. And think about when
Speaker 4: you get butterflies in your stomach, or you have that
Speaker 4: gut fing to not do that thing, but you do
Speaker 4: it anyway.
Speaker 5: And then you regret it.
Speaker 4: Those are actually real feelings based on neurotransmitters and nerve
Speaker 4: cells and actual neurological processes that are going on in
Speaker 4: our gut.
Speaker 1: Wait, so what do those butterflies mean?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 4: So I want you just for a minute to think
Speaker 4: about where the gut is located. It is in the
Speaker 4: exact center of our body. It's literally the engine, and
Speaker 4: so it connects to the brain, It connects to the lungs,
Speaker 4: the heart, the immune system, the kidneys, all of these
Speaker 4: different organs, and it literally feeds them. When it comes
Speaker 4: to the brain, it's this bidirectional communication through a nerve
Speaker 4: called the vagus nerve, and also through the fact that many, many,
Speaker 4: many of the neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, et cetera
Speaker 4: that work in our brain are actually made in our gut.
Speaker 4: And so, for example, our gut influences things like mood
Speaker 4: and cognition and memory, and our brain influences things like motility,
Speaker 4: how well our gut moves, enzyme secretion, digestion. So one
Speaker 4: of the things that it's so important for people to
Speaker 4: realize is that these things that we think are just
Speaker 4: in our head are really in our body. And that's
Speaker 4: why it's so important to consider these reactions and these
Speaker 4: factors when we think about gut health. Gut health isn't
Speaker 4: just what we eat and drink and exercising. It's also
Speaker 4: what we think, and it's also how we handle stress.
Speaker 4: And there are all these studies now that show that
Speaker 4: cognitive behavioral therapy, whether that takes a form of guided imagery,
Speaker 4: deep breathing, whatever it is, can be not just as
Speaker 4: effective as medication, but more effective than medication for conditions
Speaker 4: like irritable bowel syndrome, et cetera. And so this is
Speaker 4: such powerful stuff because unlike some of these medications, which
Speaker 4: may be magnificent, but they all have side effects. So
Speaker 4: you know, deep breathing, guided imagery, that's not going to
Speaker 4: do anything bad for you. All that's going to do
Speaker 4: is trigger your parasympathetic system, your rest and digest, and
Speaker 4: make you healthier. I love that we have these things
Speaker 4: in our toolbox. And it's really not either or if
Speaker 4: you're on prescription medication and that's really helping good for you,
Speaker 4: but it's good to know that there are additional things,
Speaker 4: and some of these things are actually more effective than
Speaker 4: the prescription drugs.
Speaker 2: I hear the word microbiome a lot when we talk
Speaker 2: about gut health, and I don't actually quite know what
Speaker 2: it means.
Speaker 1: What is our microbiome?
Speaker 4: The microbiome refers to all the microscopic organisms that live
Speaker 4: in and on our body, and so often we think bacteria,
Speaker 4: but it's not just bacteria. It's viruses, it's parasitic organisms,
Speaker 4: it's helmets otherwise known as worms.
Speaker 1: It is wan.
Speaker 5: Cell protozoa organisms, it's archaos.
Speaker 4: It's a wide range of microscopic critters, if you will,
Speaker 4: that live in our body, mostly in our gi tract.
Speaker 4: And these microbs are microscopic, but if we scrape them
Speaker 4: all up, they would weigh about four pounds. So we're
Speaker 4: talking about a lot of organisms. And they're also on
Speaker 4: our body. They're on our skin, they're in our ears
Speaker 4: or in our mouth, they're in our vaginas or up
Speaker 4: our noses. They are literally everywhere. We even have microbes
Speaker 4: in organs that we thought were previously sterile, like our lungs.
Speaker 4: It turns out, oh no, we have bacteria in our lungs.
Speaker 4: It's just that when we have the wrong head of
Speaker 4: bacteria in there, we run into problems. So they literally
Speaker 4: took us about four hundred years to figure out that
Speaker 4: most of these microbes are our friends, not our enemies,
Speaker 4: and that their health is very closely intertwined with our health,
Speaker 4: and that they have our back basically because you know
Speaker 4: what if we die, so do they wear the host.
Speaker 4: So they want to keep the host alive and healthy
Speaker 4: so that they can thrive, and so Over the last
Speaker 4: I would say two or three decades, there has been
Speaker 4: an explosion of data literature about the microbiome, and study
Speaker 4: after study after study showing that actually, you know, killing
Speaker 4: off all these microbes and scrubbing ourselves clean and using
Speaker 4: antibiotics and all these different things that damage or microbiome,
Speaker 4: all those practices are actually making us sicker, not healthier.
Speaker 4: Even in the time I went to medical school in
Speaker 4: the nineties and we were singularly focused on being as
Speaker 4: clean as possible, and the same for our patients. And
Speaker 4: there are definitely times when being clean is really important.
Speaker 4: You know, if you're in an operating room, you want
Speaker 4: that environment to be sterile. But in terms of just
Speaker 4: general self care, the shift has really moved away from
Speaker 4: this sort of super sanitization and being super clean into realizing, like,
Speaker 4: no kids need to be outside getting dirty and exposure
Speaker 4: to soil, microbes in nature, all these things are really
Speaker 4: important for maintaining health.
Speaker 2: We have to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 2: right back with more from doctor Robin Chuckkin.
Speaker 1: Stay with us.
Speaker 3: We're back with doctor Robin Chuckin. I read that we're
Speaker 3: actually exposed to bacteria from the moment we're born, and
Speaker 3: that a lot of babies get their first dose of
Speaker 3: it from the birth canal. Is that where the microbiome
Speaker 3: comes from.
Speaker 4: That's such a great question, and you are absolutely right,
Speaker 4: And it turns out the fetus itself in the womb
Speaker 4: is not even sterile. It's even exposed to some microbes
Speaker 4: early on, but not a lot and very select ones.
Speaker 4: And that passage through the birth canal, a vaginal birth
Speaker 4: is literally the most important moment in your life because
Speaker 4: that is when you become colonized with the founding species,
Speaker 4: with your man, your mother's microbiome, the Lactobacillus, bithidobacteria, et cetera.
Speaker 4: That are going to set you up for success. And
Speaker 4: what we see is that babies who are born via
Speaker 4: sea section have higher rates of four really serious things
Speaker 4: autoimmune disease, asthma, allergies, and obesity, and those things can
Speaker 4: follow them into young adulthood.
Speaker 2: Well, doctor Shakin, you've been pretty open about your own
Speaker 2: experience with this. Your daughter was born VC section, right.
Speaker 4: Yes, it completely changed my trajectory from being a conventional
Speaker 4: guest room trologist who was doing lots of colonosko be
Speaker 4: writing lots of prescriptions to really understanding the impact of
Speaker 4: the microbiome. So I was thirty nine when I had
Speaker 4: my daughter, So I was what they call advanced maternal age.
Speaker 4: But I was super healthy, no medical problems. I was,
Speaker 4: you know, running, swimming, doing all these things. So I
Speaker 4: was in really good health. And when my water broke,
Speaker 4: I remember like going to the hospital. I got there
Speaker 4: around nine am and I was like, Okay, by four pm,
Speaker 4: I'm going to have me a baby. I was convinced
Speaker 4: that my baby was going to be born during the
Speaker 4: Oprah Show between like four and five PM. And I
Speaker 4: can't remember what episode it was. I keep meaning to
Speaker 4: look back and see what Oprah came and went, no baby.
Speaker 4: And one of the things I got they asked me,
Speaker 4: you know, they're like, would you like an epidural? And
Speaker 4: you're like, really, I am in like agony hair, and
Speaker 4: you're saying you can relieve some of that pain. Oh yes, please,
Speaker 4: So you get an epidural, But they don't tell you
Speaker 4: that getting an epidural is going to significantly increase your
Speaker 4: risk of a sea section. And of course for me,
Speaker 4: even as a physician, I didn't know about sea sections
Speaker 4: being associated with all these significant conditions in the baby.
Speaker 4: So I'm like, oh, yes, please please stick that needle
Speaker 4: in my back and take away my pain. So you
Speaker 4: get an epidural, and then my labor is a little
Speaker 4: bit of failure to progress, and so they're like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: we're going to give you something to speed up labor,
Speaker 4: something to induce labor, and I was like, oh, that
Speaker 4: sounds great. They don't tell you that that medication they're
Speaker 4: giving you to induce labor also is going to cause
Speaker 4: a higher likelihood of sea section. And again not second
Speaker 4: guessing these decisions. I think these are all very reasonable
Speaker 4: medical decisions, but just pointing out that how someone like
Speaker 4: me as a physician, was really unaware this stuff, and
Speaker 4: had I known, I probably would have said, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm not sure we need to do.
Speaker 5: All of this.
Speaker 4: And then you have a baby who's born via C section,
Speaker 4: so she misses out on that important passage through the
Speaker 4: birth canal and the seating of her body, of her
Speaker 4: little body with all those important microbes. And then because
Speaker 4: I had a fever, they put my daughter Sydney in
Speaker 4: the nicque the neonatal ICU just for precautionary measures. And
Speaker 4: again that's all good because they don't know if my
Speaker 4: fever means an infection that could have been transmitted to her.
Speaker 4: But what I didn't realize is they also gave her
Speaker 4: two doses of an intravenous antibiotic just in case, so
Speaker 4: whatever few little microbes she might have got, you know, gone.
Speaker 4: And this is where things start to get a little squirrely.
Speaker 4: And I couldn't figure out why she was sick all
Speaker 4: the time. I was a first mom. She's the only
Speaker 4: kid I have, and I would ask other moms. I'm like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: how many air infections has your kid had? And they're
Speaker 4: like none, and I'm like, oh, my kid is on
Speaker 4: her eighth air infection and she's not even one. So
Speaker 4: she ended up being on twenty two courses of antibiotics
Speaker 4: before she was two years old. And I realized at
Speaker 4: that point I had to kind of choose a different path.
Speaker 4: And really, I always want to tell people that I
Speaker 4: was able to do it because I'm a physician, and
Speaker 4: so I know that you know, what are the signs
Speaker 4: and symptoms to look for I do not recommend that
Speaker 4: people go rogue and decide to stop going to the
Speaker 4: beat attrition or stop you know, giving their kid antibotics.
Speaker 4: But I really do strongly advise that people start asking
Speaker 4: questions like question number one, is this antibiotic absolutely necessary?
Speaker 4: And that's the important question to ask, not just for
Speaker 4: your kid, but for yourself. Question number two, what would
Speaker 4: happen if I didn't take an antibiotic? Because a lot
Speaker 4: of the time the answer is, Oh, you'll just be
Speaker 4: sick for a day or two longer, And it's like, oh, really, oh,
Speaker 4: I'll take that.
Speaker 1: So how do you determine that?
Speaker 2: Because like, if you have like I felt like a
Speaker 2: six year old, but I got strep throat last month
Speaker 2: and I needed that antibiotic, versus if you have a
Speaker 2: sinus infection, sometimes you feel like you need the antibiotic,
Speaker 2: but really you can wait it out.
Speaker 1: It's just really tough.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's important to also think about the flip side
Speaker 4: of antibiotics. When you take an antibiotic, it doesn't just
Speaker 4: kill off the bad bug causing the sinus infection or
Speaker 4: the strip. It kills off droves of your healthy bacteria.
Speaker 4: And in fact, the studies say, it can remove up
Speaker 4: to a third of your gut bacteria. There is no
Speaker 4: probiotic in the world that can fix that, and so
Speaker 4: you have to balance that. It's not like, oh, there's
Speaker 4: no risk, there's huge risk. And there's several great published studies.
Speaker 4: There's a study looking at rotavirus and children, which is
Speaker 4: a common virus that causes diarreal illness. This study showed
Speaker 4: that children who received a course of antibiotics in the
Speaker 4: two weeks before they got rotavirus were much sicker, They
Speaker 4: had more serious infection, more likely to be hospitalized, longer
Speaker 4: course of illness. We have studies now showing that antibiotics
Speaker 4: and middle aged women are linked to cognitive decline aging
Speaker 4: the brain three to four years. We know that antibiotics
Speaker 4: in young children are linked to poor executive function cognitive issues.
Speaker 4: So it's not just the theoretical risk of an autoimmune
Speaker 4: disease down the road. When you take an antibiotic, it
Speaker 4: is always always doing some damage to your gut.
Speaker 5: Your gut is always taking a hit.
Speaker 4: And I just go into all the different pros and
Speaker 4: cons because I want to be clear, this is not
Speaker 4: an easy decision. It's not you know, antibiotics are terribly
Speaker 4: you should never use them, or antibotics or panacea you
Speaker 4: should always take one. There's a lot of grey zone.
Speaker 4: It's very nuanced, and it's really important that your individual
Speaker 4: history is a part of that decision making. So, you know,
Speaker 4: not suggesting that you confront the doctor like hey, I'm
Speaker 4: not taking an antibiotic no matter what that stuff as poison,
Speaker 4: but that you really, you know, you have good questions
Speaker 4: to ask so that you can make a good informed
Speaker 4: decision together.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: As I'm hearing you speak, it sounds like you yourself
Speaker 3: had this awakening or enlightenment about the over prescription of
Speaker 3: antibiotics that we see in traditional medicine. You have a
Speaker 3: medical degree in gastroentrology, You were a physician for many years,
Speaker 3: probably working in some of these same traditional conventional medicine circles,
Speaker 3: and now you run a digestive wellness center that is
Speaker 3: an integrative practice. Describe like what went into that pivot
Speaker 3: and that awakening.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, this is it's good. We can do
Speaker 4: some therapy on this. I'm like, yes, it was. I mean,
Speaker 4: I it's exactly as you said, Simone, and I like,
Speaker 4: I trained at good places Yale and Columbia and Mount Sinai,
Speaker 4: and I was on the committees. I've written textbooks and
Speaker 4: book chapters, and I considered myself a really good doctor.
Speaker 4: And really that experience with my daughter of seeing the
Speaker 4: profound effect of the antibiotics, not just the circumstances of
Speaker 4: the birth, the C section, but the profound effect of
Speaker 4: those antibiotics and how they actually made her more susceptible
Speaker 4: to infection. And because I have the incredible privilege in
Speaker 4: my practice of treating primarily autoimmune gut disorders like crohnes
Speaker 4: and ulster kalitis, celiac disease, things like that, I started
Speaker 4: to take note, and I started to ask my patients
Speaker 4: about their medical histories, and I started seeing very similar histories.
Speaker 4: So all of that led to this awakening, and it really,
Speaker 4: you know, I don't want to describe it as losing
Speaker 4: your faith because that sounds.
Speaker 5: Overly dramatic, right.
Speaker 4: I Mean, I am a proud physician, I wear that
Speaker 4: white coat, I have a prescription pad. I'm very proud
Speaker 4: of being a doctor. But it really made me realize
Speaker 4: that a lot of the things we're doing in medicine
Speaker 4: are creating illness. It's not that we're not doing good.
Speaker 4: We're doing a lot of good. And antibiotics are life
Speaker 4: changing antibotics. Over the one hundred years since we've had them,
Speaker 4: almost have saved millions of lives.
Speaker 5: So that's true.
Speaker 4: And what's also true is they are widely overprescribed and overused.
Speaker 4: And what's also true is they are linked to chronic
Speaker 4: conditions that we are only now learning about conditions not
Speaker 4: just in our gut, but on our skin, in our brains,
Speaker 4: et cetera, because of that connection between the gut and
Speaker 4: these other organs. So these three things are all true.
Speaker 4: At the same time, it's not all good or all bad.
Speaker 4: And so for me realizing that, like I'm focusing on
Speaker 4: prescribing drugs and I'm not looking at what people are
Speaker 4: eating and how they're living and their habits, and so
Speaker 4: that really forced me to embrace an additional type of medicine,
Speaker 4: which is the idea of diet and lifestyle. And I'm
Speaker 4: really proud that in our practice with our autoimmune patients
Speaker 4: who have crones and ulster colitis, we have data showing
Speaker 4: a seventy nine percent remission rate using a food as
Speaker 4: medicine approach. Now it's not one hundred percent, right, seventy nine,
Speaker 4: so about four out of every five patients. But the
Speaker 4: most potent immune suppressing drug isn't even fifty percent. And
Speaker 4: by the way, it can cause cancer and serious infection.
Speaker 4: And if you can achieve those same results for similar
Speaker 4: results using diet and lifestyle, then why wouldn't you, Right,
Speaker 4: So it's not either or it's both, but trying to
Speaker 4: build on that platform.
Speaker 3: We've got to take another short break.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back, and we're back with doctor Robin Chuckin.
Speaker 2: So I'm curious about some of those lifestyle changes that
Speaker 2: we can make. What are the best things we can
Speaker 2: do for our microbiome.
Speaker 4: Well, I like to sum it up with sort of
Speaker 4: an oversimplified three words dirt.
Speaker 5: Sweat, veg.
Speaker 4: So we'll start with a vedge, actually, because that's the
Speaker 4: most important one. So our healthy gut microbes ferment fiber.
Speaker 4: They take fiber and process it in the colon, and
Speaker 4: they produce metabolites what we call post biotics, things like
Speaker 4: shirt chain fatty acids and those substances. Those post metabolites
Speaker 4: are essential not just for maintaining a healthy gut lining,
Speaker 4: but high levels of short chain fatty acids equal a
Speaker 4: healthy immune system, so they're important for protecting us from infection, cancer,
Speaker 4: et cetera, as well as maintaining the health of the gut.
Speaker 4: So in order to have high levels of short chain
Speaker 4: fatty acid, you got to eat your vegetables.
Speaker 3: So what are the specific vegetables that are great for
Speaker 3: our gut.
Speaker 4: So really there are no bad vegetables, but the ones
Speaker 4: to really focus on are the really fiber stringy one
Speaker 4: so think of like broccoli and asparagus, and salary leafy
Speaker 4: greens are good too, and those are really important. And
Speaker 4: one thing when you cook broccoli, you don't want to
Speaker 4: throw away the stem. The stem is where most of
Speaker 4: the fiber is, so you want to chop up that stem,
Speaker 4: shave it, do whatever you need to do so that
Speaker 4: you can cook it and make it more palatable. Same
Speaker 4: thing with the asparagus. Don't snap off the bottom half
Speaker 4: of the asparagus because that's where most of the fiber is.
Speaker 4: And what we call resistant starches are really important too,
Speaker 4: Resistant meaning they're not broken down in the upper part
Speaker 4: of our small intestine. So those would be things like
Speaker 4: in oats and beans and so on, because they float
Speaker 4: down to the colon where they get fermented by the bacteria.
Speaker 4: So all the kind of fiber things that we don't
Speaker 4: digest well because they're really not there for us. They're
Speaker 4: there to feed our bacteria. Those are really important. And
Speaker 4: then the dirt and sweat are just you know, getting
Speaker 4: outside of nature because other than food and that initial
Speaker 4: passage through the birth canal, where do we get our
Speaker 4: microbes from. We get them from soil. They're out there
Speaker 4: in nature in dirt. So we want to have exposure
Speaker 4: to nature. There's a study that shows that kids who
Speaker 4: live in a very urban environment, places like New York
Speaker 4: City where there's a lot of glass and concrete, have
Speaker 4: higher rates of asthma, they have higher rates of exzema
Speaker 4: and colonization on the skin with some staff and other
Speaker 4: bacteria that are not so helpful, and a lot of
Speaker 4: that is because of the lack of exposure to nature.
Speaker 4: There's studies that show that rurality, meaning exposure to farm
Speaker 4: animals and being out in farmland areas, is protective against
Speaker 4: autoimmune diseases. And so even if you do live in
Speaker 4: New York City, take your kid to the park, sit
Speaker 4: in some grass, so that's a dirt, and then the
Speaker 4: sweat part, because we know that exercise has a really
Speaker 4: beneficial effect not just on the gut microbiome, keeping it balanced,
Speaker 4: because it keeps things moving through so you don't get
Speaker 4: stasis of the contents, but also on gut motility and
Speaker 4: enzyme secretion, which you want for good gut function.
Speaker 5: So some of the people we see.
Speaker 4: With the worst GI problems are sedentary people, for example,
Speaker 4: in nursing homes or people who aren't moving. They get constipated,
Speaker 4: they have what we call dyspiosis and sort of imbalanced microbiome,
Speaker 4: have all kinds.
Speaker 5: Of motility issues. So there's lots to do.
Speaker 4: I mean, hydration is important, There's so many things, But
Speaker 4: I believe in focusing on three things at a time,
Speaker 4: and so if you have to focus on three things,
Speaker 4: focus on dirt, sweat, and ven.
Speaker 3: I'm really curious to ask you about all these different
Speaker 3: probiotics prebiotics that are out there. I'm curious to hear
Speaker 3: what you think about that and just if there are
Speaker 3: any that you would recommend that are highly effective.
Speaker 4: Sure, So let's start with a quick definition for people
Speaker 4: who might be a little less familiar. A prebiotic refers
Speaker 4: to the food that the bacteria eat, So that's all
Speaker 4: the fibers stuff I was talking about. Right, Biota means organism,
Speaker 4: let's say micro bacteria for the purposes of this conversation.
Speaker 4: So prebiotic is something that is feeding the bacteria. And
Speaker 4: so prebiotics, I like to remind people, are not things
Speaker 4: that come at a canister with a label from the factory.
Speaker 4: Probiotics are actually foods out there in nature, like oats
Speaker 4: and celery and beans and all those high fiber foods.
Speaker 4: That's a pre biotic. A probiotic refers to the actual bacteria,
Speaker 4: not just a store bought wandes in the canister, but
Speaker 4: the ones in our body. And probiotics, the definition from
Speaker 4: the World Health Organization is a living organism that, when ingested,
Speaker 4: confers a benefit to the host. And it's the second
Speaker 4: part of that definition that's tricky because the vast majority
Speaker 4: of those products out there don't have any efficacy. They
Speaker 4: can't show any actual data that this is making you healthier.
Speaker 4: So that's a probiotic. And then a post biotic is
Speaker 4: what I was talking about. The short chain fatty acids.
Speaker 4: Those are metabolites that the bacteria make that are ostensibly
Speaker 4: good for us. And so the first point I want
Speaker 4: to make, and I relate to this because I was
Speaker 4: not a good vegetable eater growing up, and even now,
Speaker 4: my preferred way to get in a lot of vegetables
Speaker 4: is a green smoothie. But people will do anything to
Speaker 4: avoid actually eating a vegetable. I feel like when people
Speaker 4: ask me about a probiotic, I feel like if I say,
Speaker 4: you know, there's legitimacy for this is and that I'm
Speaker 4: getting them off the hook for going out and eating
Speaker 4: some vegetables. So the first thing I want to say
Speaker 4: to you, my best advice is to feed the bacteria
Speaker 4: that are already in your gut, because they are alive.
Speaker 5: When you buy something off.
Speaker 4: The shelf, remember this is an on regulated market. The
Speaker 4: product says at the bottom, this product is not intended
Speaker 4: to treat or cure any disease. And in the words
Speaker 4: of Maya Angelou, when someone tells you who they are,
Speaker 4: believe them. So you're taking a product that on the
Speaker 4: label tells you right up front, this isn't going to
Speaker 4: do anything. But we're taking it anyway because you know,
Speaker 4: we want to believe the best thing to do is
Speaker 4: to not kill off your microbes.
Speaker 5: With the antibiotics, acid blockers, et cetera.
Speaker 4: And to eat the food, the prebiotic food, the beans
Speaker 4: and greens and broccoli, et cetera, and berries that we
Speaker 4: know are going to feed the bacteria in our gut.
Speaker 4: But if you were to ask me, the probiotic that
Speaker 4: I recommend for certain conditions, because there are over one
Speaker 4: hundred scientific articles actually showing that it does what it
Speaker 4: says it's going to do, is something called viz bio,
Speaker 4: and it's a combination of seven different bacteria, and it
Speaker 4: is considered by the FDA a medical food for the
Speaker 4: treatment of conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, for something called pouchitis,
Speaker 4: which is something that can happen with ulster of klitis
Speaker 4: after the colon is removed. There's several veterinary studies, but
Speaker 4: I don't recommend that the average healthy person who wants
Speaker 4: to be healthier necessarily take a probiotic. I recommend dirt, sweat,
Speaker 4: veg for that person. You're going to get a lot
Speaker 4: more bang out of going to the farmer's market, buying
Speaker 4: some food that was grown in dirt and eating some vegetables.
Speaker 2: Doctor Chekin, thank you so much for joining us on
Speaker 2: the right side.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. That was so informative.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's such a pleasure to be with you. Thanks
Speaker 4: for all the great work and conversations you're having.
Speaker 2: Doctor Robin Checkkin is a gastro entrologist, author of several
Speaker 2: digestive health books, and host of the Gut Bliss podcast.
Speaker 3: That's It. For today's show, tomorrow, we're joined by chef,
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Speaker 3: in the culinary world, and tomorrow she's sharing her recipe
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