Welcome to the transcript of the Podcast episode looking at How your gut affects your Health and Fertility.
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0:00
Welcome, Joanna. And welcome back. It was fantastic to talk to you about inflammationand and now we're going to look more specifically at gut health. And I know we touched upon it in the last episode, but we're really going to dig a little bit deeper in this episode, and talk about gut health and its impact on general health.
0:24
Yes, hi, Kat. Yes. and, thank you, because gut health is one of my favourite subjects. Because I see it as being incredibly important, you know, central to our overall health, really, because Don't forget, everything that goes into our mouth, whether it's through our food or on our hands, meeets the gut as our first barrier, because its our first line of defence in terms of protecting us from any pathogens and things that could be on those foods. And then you think about you, we have, significant proportion of our immune system is in our gut, so sort of 70 to 80% as well, but also, you know, the gut is, is where we absorb a lot of our nutrients. So, obviously, nutrients are vital for all the processes in the body. So, you know, if we've got an issue with our gut health, if we have a compromised guts in any way, if we have some kind of damage, we can get things like leaky gut, where the small intestine becomes permeable, and this then leads to inflammation and mal absorption, or we may have things like a disrupted bacterial population in the gut. So, we have living in the gut a whole range of bacteria, probably something like 30 or 40 species of bacteria. At any one time, basically these have a really important role to play in overall health.
2:08
So in terms of gut health, how would somebody know if they had poor gut health? I mean, would they necessarily know symptom wise?
2:19
Absolutely. So a lot of the common gut symptoms vary, symptoms that you can experience are things like bloating, wind, flatulence, dissension, abdominal pain, you might have constipation or diarrhoea. And then there's other things as well which are not necessarily manifesting in the gut. So you might have things like immune conditions like autoimmune conditions, you might have like skin disorders, or you know, like itchy skin, or some other you know, acne and things like that. impose things like respect tree, you know conditions, foods that you have always been able to eat for example, suddenly you find your you're sensitive to those foods, you know, you might may not be able to tolerate the foods and like you could in the past. So all these things can, you know, manifest if you've got some kind of balance or compromise got, you know, over time all these things will cause inflammation. And over time, you know, and this is not just in the gut, but the inflammation is systemic throughout the body. So, this is when it then starts to impact all the systems of the body, the brain, you know, the nervous system. Obviously, the immune system is over challenged when this is happening. And obviously, reproductive system is included in that as well. There's no system that isn't going to be affected.
4:00
What is it that would cause this? I mean, I know you're not going to end with this one specific cause, but what might people be doing diet wise and lifestyle wise that might lead to issues with the gut?
4:15
Okay, so there's many, many things things like smoking and alcohol and diets that if you're eating processed and packaged food, pre packaged foods, which typically will be higher in sugar, refined sugars, and at the same time lower in fibre. So these two things, you know, too much sugar and not enough fibre are actually critical in terms of maintaining that healthy bacterial balance because is the good bacteria in our in our gut which feeds Off fibre and the back to the bad guys, and they love sugar.
5:06
So you know if this is your diet, your sort of fueling, you know, if you have got some kind of imbalance, you are fueling that situation and then if you smoke as well, if you drink alcohol, again, obviously, lots of sugar in in alcohol and things like caffeine. And classically, you know, there's not one part of us that doesn't suffer from stress. So stress is a massive, has a massive impact on the guts so they can change the pH, the acid alkaline balance of the gut. And this then is not helpful to our friendly bacteria.
5:47
Then what happens is, you end up with you opening the door for the bad bacteria to become more dominant. So and also cortisol which is elevated when we're really stressed, cortisol has the effect of opening up those lovely tight junctions in the gut. So, you know, our gastrointestinal tract is meant to be this beautiful sort of tight, complete structure with a really lovely tight matrix. But what can happen is, you know, if you have too much cortisol, it can, it can sort of have the impact of, or have the effect of opening up those lovely tight junctions. And this is when you get things like leaky gut.
6:29
So leaky gut, I think we did mention that last week. And I think I said that I got some help for leaky gut and I have an autoimmune disease. And when I started to address that things, things started to improve. So how would you know you've got leaky got many you mentioned some symptoms there, about flatulence and so on, but could you have leaky gut and not have specific symptoms?
6:56
Well, leaky gut again, is something that once you have got that permeability in your gut, so even if you have some really healthy diet the food is coming in and actually it's slipping through the small intestine into the bloodstream in in bigger particles than it ordinarily should be.
7:18
So this is causing an immune reaction This is going to cause inflammation again, not just in the gut but systemically so what can happen is you know, symptoms manifest all over the body. So again, you know, as well as the typical gut symptoms, like the bloating the when the constipation diarrhoea you might have both going on, you know, Alternately, you might have things like cravings, and things like headaches and migraines, it can affect the brain so you end up with things like memory problems and mental confusion, poor concentration and brain fog. And then in terms of hormones, things like mood swings. And even things like impotence, and thrush. So you could end up you know, with thrush, and you would know if you had thrash and obviously it manifests either orally or genitally. But not everybody that, gets thrush, you don't necessarily have to get thrush to have this condition going on. So, yeah, and things like aching joints, even an itching , or all over skin rashes. So it really does, you know, have an impact, you know, sort of anywhere in the body.
8:39
Thats incredible, because it's stopping that normal function, isn't it and some of the things you mentioned so irritability, mood swings, brain fog, lack of concentration that a lot of the time it is put down to hormone imbalance, but maybe the hormone imbalance is due to the issues in the gut and they work Together not together, but they're having an effect. Does that make sense?
9:04
Yeah, well, it comes back down to obviously hormone balance is is relies heavily on having the the adequate supply of nutrients. So, the thing that really supports all the systems in the body and drives all the systems in the body and keeps them regulated is a process what we call methylation. So, methylation is just this rather complex biochemical process, which needs you know, vitamins, minerals and amino acids.
9:33
And then essentially, you know, this is then turning these things into a format that can be used and activated to drive all the systems in the body. So yes, in terms of what in terms of fertility, this is how we regulate our hormones. This is this is to help detoxify especially, you know, we need to detoxify our estrogens and this is to ensure that we are digesting properly and making sure that our immune function is strong. So it all comes back down to, let's assume you have a really good dietary intake of nutrients, so you're getting a balanced diet of carbs, proteins, fats, these are your macronutrients. And if you have a good level of intake and variation of those, those three types of food group those three food groups, this in theory should deliver the right level of micronutrients which are your vitamins and minerals. Now, this is in theory, but of course,
10:40
Our lifestyle and lifestyle factors then come into play and have an influence on this. So, you know, it depends on the level of stress that you're exposed to, what is your job? Do you enjoy your job? You know, what are the demands on you, , whether that's Emotional, and , age plays a part. So if you're a bit older, you have great nutrient needs or younger or pregnant and, or as an athlete.
11:13
So all these things can affect you, it's not just about taking the right quantity. It's about what are the factors at play that may influence your need for nutrients, or you can end up you know, losing nutrients through having other underlying conditions in the body, like you may have some kind of genetic variation, what we call a snip, where we can't activate some of the nutrients or we may have a genetic variation where we can't effectively methylate so this is one process that drives all these other processes in the body.
12:00
Remember with nutrients we do manufacture, synthesise some of our own nutrients. So B vitamins for example, and Vitamin, K, This is is what the good bacteria in our gut can manufacture for us. So this is another really good reason why we need to make sure we have this healthy microbiome know this this balance you know, this harmonious balance of bacteria because we've got this balance you know, these these wonderful processes that the gut is able to carry out, which supports our overall health can all take place, you know, as well as synthesising these Vitamins. It also helps that the bacteria also help us absorb some of our minerals, they things like calcium and magnesium and iron.
12:55
And also serotonin is produced in the gut as well by these Guys, so again really important for supporting mental health, emotional health. And leading on from that, you know, Melatonin is derived from serotonin and this is what helps us sleep. So it's all about this whole, you know, it's looking at a much bigger sort of picture here really, and again coming back to detoxification. So the good bacteria if they, you know, again, if we've got this lovely balance, the good bacteria are producing really important enzymes that we need for our liver for detoxification. So if we've got an imbalance know if the bad bacteria are dominant, what these guys do is they can impair our detoxification processes because we end up with a situation where we produce too much what we call betaglucuronidase.
14:07
This enzyme is implicated, not just in detoxification, but well, in terms of fertility. Obviously, it's important that we are effectively detoxifying our oestrogen . So that what this can do, this disrupts that process and can lead too much oestrogen actively circulating in the system. Now again, you can test for this, you know, this is all part of, you know, you can do a test and look at the gastrointestinal tract to see whether you've go certain markers and present that suggests you've got dysbiosis which is going to influence obviously, some of these processes we've just spoken about and inhibit some of those processes. So, you know, most things we can find out what's going on, I don't think these sort of tests are necessarily offered through their GP service, unfortunately, because they don't have the time or the resources.
15:11
No. And I think you know, you've meant you mentioned that in B6, and we talked about that last week. And that does
15:18
come up in a lot of fertility issues. This is often mentioned in articles that people might read about fertility and specifically with progesterone, and I know that Candida, and again, when people are searching about that infertility, they'll find information about the effects on oestrogen and progesterone. And I know that as you said, going back that's about the methylation and to lead forward to be able to actually produce the correct hormones but , when someone is looking at fertility and thinking right, so got might be an issue. And it becomes all consuming again about fertility. If we take that step back and think actually for general health To therefore make all systems work effectively, let's look at our gut and how we can support the gut. Sure. So if someone wanted to say "right, maybe I have got bad bacteria, and let's get an approach to sort it", I know that people can do cleanses, or people can have specific supplements. What's your approach to it, Joanna? Where do you come from? ,
16:27
Ok so, I always look at just making sure and if so, leaky gut obviously, is where you may end up with this damage in the gut. So I would always sort of look at that first because if you have got this damage, again, you're predisposing yourself to you know, a greater risk of having the bacterial imbalance. So, the thing is, these things are bi directional. So you know, you could have one and it will lead to the other or the other way around. So, try and look at everything, look at first of all, the acid production when you got enough acid being produced to digest your food, to then release the nutrients,
17:09
OK? Some some medications can interfere with this process. So things like omeprozol and lanzoprozal resolved. You know, these medications are typically prescribed if you suffer a little bit of acid reflux. So I would look at that first and then I wouldill always address , leaky gut and bacterial imbalance together. So, in terms of leaky gut, this is looking at trying to support the gut integrity.
17:37
So it's things like glutamine rich foods, so things like cabbage, believe it or not, has this amino acid in it. If you eat meat, that's another really good source if you do like your roast dinner, the best thing to do is to boil the bones down with some Vegetables because this the collagen coming from this is really good for supporting and know the cell turnover you know the cell repair and regeneration..
18:13
Yes, things like that are really good if you can stomach bone broth or you've got time to make it. Things like obviously protein rich foods. Again, this is all about giving you the amino acids which are the building blocks. And another thing that people quite often miss miss but it's really simple is hydration. No drinking enough water , our cells contain a significant proportion of water. We rely on water for so many processes. And if we allow ourselves to start dehydrating, the body doesn't like it. It's not helpful to us.
18:53
And so I would also look at trying to exclude some things that may be irritating you it may Be a temporary irritation and once you've cleaned up the gut you can go back to eating the foods without experience any kind of sensitivity. So things like gluten and fermented foods which ordinarily can be good for you but while you're trying to heal your gut you I would lay off these foods limit those foods, things like you know, sugar, refined sugar, alcohol, and things like vinegar and products containing vinegar and citrus and dairy Of course. So, but once you've healed the gut, you should be able to go back to eating these foods and you know, hopefully not experience any sensitivity
19:43
I wanted to pick up on the vinegar and fermented foods. You said that and that's really interesting because I see things all the time promoting gut health, and it promotes fermented foods it promotes sauerkraut, and similar things and then promote taking the probiotic and, and everything but I really want to pick up on that it's important to heal it first.
20:09
Absolutely, yes.
20:09
We don't need throwing this stuff at it first we need to heal it and to heal this cleansing by elimination, generally, yeah, so we need to cleanse before we heal. Is that right, Yes,
20:23
so, so limit those foods which are causing it, if you've already if you're sort of compromised in some way, if you think like a wound on your hand, you can see that you can't see inside, but it's the same kind of thing. If you put if you put lemon juice on that wound that's going to really sting and it's the same principle. You know, if you put vinegar on that wound, it's going to really sting. So it's that sort of principle really, and then it's obviously causes the inflammation which we don't want.
20:53
So just ease off those foods while you do f a gut healing protocol and What what I would be looking to do is an anti microbial protocol as well.
21:05
So looking at trying to redress the balance of the bacteria, anti microbial foods are things like you know, coconut things like garlic, and ginger and Oregono and thyme and rosemary and some of the spices like chilli and turmeric and cumin, so, these are toxic to the bad bacteria. And so this is going to help bring the balance back. And at the same time you need to them be putting in some some good bacteria , what we call probiotic foods. So these are things like your yoghurts, your live natural unsweetened yoghurts that have got added bacteria and this is where the fermented foods things come in at this later stage, okay, so things like you know the kefir that Kombucha, sauerkraut, they can have the effect of introducing new friendly bacteria in the gut. And then you would also be looking to make sure you're feeding your good bacteria as well. So this is the prebiotic foods. So this is generally fibre rich foods. Remember we said earlier how the good bacteria feed off fibre so it's sort of fruits and vegetables that have tough skins that we have to chew well. And, and things like onions and garlic, and leeks, chicory and asparagus, artichokes and things like bananas and oats as wel, some of the grains have got good levels of fibre as well. So but you know, it is about having some kind of order about this as you said Kat because you need to be careful if you're if you're putting the antimicrobials in, you need to take care that you're not actually going to, to kill some of the good bacteria. And then equally, you don't want to be feeding the bad bacteria. So it's about you know, it's having this sort of structured approach in this in this sort of protocol in terms of you know, this gut healing then restore restoration, repopulation in the right order.
23:41
Yeah. So I do a cleanse, and probably twice a year, sometimes more where I just cut back completely on processed food for about a week. This is quite self lead, I suppose. But for about a week. week and then I look at restoring so it's a case of cleansing, isn't it? And then you need to heal. Would you agree that in order to cleanse we're having that cut back on those processed foods and irritants and vinegar and so on?
24:18
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, obviously if it's for a short period of time, it's good and it's easy to do whereas if you're if you're cutting out all those foods longer term, then you do put yourself at risk of missing out on valuable nutrients. Sure. So short term, yes, it can be helpful and it's achievable. I just don't get processed and I don't eat sugar I mean, I don't eat sugar as a whole anyway, to be honest, but every so often, particularly after
24:44
Christmas, and so on, I might do it then.
24:48
I know a lot of people will look at this cleanse and think well, maybe that means they've got to restrict everything. Or maybe they're already having juice but it's not is it that that's the point I'm trying to get here that cleanse. We just Just by reducing the harmful food.
25:04
Absolutely,increasing the good food. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And it's, yeah, anything that's going to give your body a little break or change is going to motivate it into, you know, trying to sort of, I suppose trying to sort of support itself in a way so, yeah, giving it that great because you know, especially after Christmas, if your liver everything, you know, your detox process, everything is probably over challenged, things like sleep again, really important in terms of making sure that you give those systems in the body a rest, so give them a chance to repair and regenerate. And then once you have had this sort of period of elimination as it were and then I think Yeah, you can start to then look at doing something protocol, you know, like the anti microbial protocol. And you know, the whole restoration process because there's no point putting probiotics in. If you haven't got the right level of good bacteria in there in the first place,
26:16
Lots of people I come across are taking digestive enzymes are having fermented foods are having probiotics, but they haven't done the cleanse, the elimination, the repair, people are jumping into this repair or restore, I guess it's restoration they're jumping into without having done the Remove and repair, remove, repair and restore.
26:46
Yes, if you're not careful, you could end up just driving the disbyosis, the imbalance. So things like we have yeast living in the gut, things like Candida what can happen if over time, is that not having enough good bacteria, which normally they keep the yeast in check, this is when you then get a more serious condition like Candida, yeast overgrowth, which you know, has quite a destructive effect on the body and you won't necessarily know you have it, you know, like you won't, you won't necessarily get thrush that if you've got Canada So you know, you won't know that you've got it, but it's it's going on and it's it's basically quite a destructive little devil and it can then lead to things like no more serious things like leaky guts what can happen is, as it grows it, it's desperate for sugar so it feeds off sugar. So it starts to have these little legs, that sort of little filaments that sort of grow down and anchor into the gut lining. And this is so this how it can lead to leaky gut is it then sort of borrows in the gut, and you know, and then you've got this sort of leaky gut and this is what then can lead to things like food sensitivities, and autoimmune conditions as well.
28:46
Ultimately, you're going to have systemic inflammation as well, lots of things going on. And it's basically going to it can damage the immune system as well and then we've got to remember that both the Candida the yeast and the bacteria we have too many of the good guys these things are also giving off toxins Do they have their own byproducts? So these toxins are then circulating around our system they store in our fat cells in our brain cells, hence this is why we can end up with foggy brain and mood swings and things like depression even , that can happen with with these conditions as well.
29:51
Coming back to the simple things like sugar, alcohols, stimulants stress, managing these things. It's all part of this bigger lifestyle picture, keeping keeping our got healthy because obviously these things and as we said they can alter the pH of the gut, which then alters the environment and allows the sort of the unfriendly bacteria to proliferate, which opens the door for Candida, though it's this whole sort of process really, of making sure you've got this, you know, really nice balanced variation of carbs, proteins and fats going in, you've got, you know, good digestive function.
30:37
So, it starts here in the gut, really, you know, there's that saying, You are what you eat. Yeah. Yeah, that's really true. Of course it is because you want a good quality and variation of food to give you those nutrients, but, really it is you are what you absorb. Because you know, you can have the best diet in the world. And if something's not good in the gut, , if you've got some kind of compromise in the gut, you're not going to be able to, you know, optimise those nutrients and get everything, to fully utilise those nutrients. So yeah, it really is important , gut health is key and say there's, there's various tests you can do, but ultimately, most of these are stool tests. Yeah. So they are very illuminating. They'll give you a very informative picture about not just , digestive function and absorption, that also about the the microbiome, human potential disorders there, whether it's leaky gut or bacterial imbalance, or some kind of yeast Candida type of action. So you can you can get the answers you can find out what's going on.
31:59
So again, I guess people could contact you or somebody similar to yourself to look at these specifically. And if they wanted that diagnosis, there are tests that can be done. Or I guess they could just approach it as if it were that, that's not going to do any harm is it for us to do this? and eliminate and repair and restore process?
32:26
Absolutely, I mean there's so much available on the internet and there are, you know, you can follow that protocol. try that if yyou don't have a chronic problem, it could be at a different stage and if it's early stages, and you're, you're quite an intuitive and self aware person, you can probably kind of follow the protocol in a book or online, whatever, and work this out. But if somebody has been experiencing, you know, these much wider symptoms for a number of years weeks or months or even years, sometimes people sometimes p just live with these things and sort of accepted it as Oh, well, you know, I'm getting a bit older, this must be normal, you know, but actually, you shouldn't really be having any sort of symptoms really. So, yeah, typically you may have been to your doctor , you've got these symptoms and these sort of mystery illness because your blood results are normal, but actually, you know, you're not quite right you're not firing on all cylinders, you may have lost your spark, so you've got this ongoing skin problem or cough or whatever it may be. And obviously gut problems are a big telltale sign that something's not quite right. You could choose go down the nutrition route and doing the cleanse and the you know, the restore and repopulation or if you if you really want to get on top of this and get the answers quickly, then I would look at definitely look at doing some stool testing. Because we're saying gives you gives you the answers really. And it's actually a very advanced test because it actually cultures the bacteria and the yeast so we then know what agents. We have this sort of thing where a lot of the bacteria are resistant to antibiotics now so we can see this we can see whether your bacteria are resistant to certain antibiotic and anti microbial agents and which ones they're sensitive to. So then you have something real that you can work with, which agents are going to use, whether they be drug therapies will natural agents, like foods to then deal with these issues to tackle these bacteria. So it really is like a very personalised, very bespoke or close
34:47
Back to being detective again, isn't it? Yeah, I said last week, I love that. So this is such a big area, such a big area and for general health and I know also, obviously Fertility. Fertility is affected by your general health. So we kind of have to stop looking at fertility as a little pocket on it. And step back to that general health. I think that's really useful information for people to take forward and perhaps investigate a little bit further.
35:20
It very much comes back down to balance, and making sure you're getting a range of foods. You know, if you're on a particular dietary protocol, just be careful that you're not excluding whole food groups and missing out new vital nutrients. If you're on medications, it could be something as simple as you take quite a few what we call nonsteroidal anti inflammatories. Common painkillers you buy over the counter, these are very corrosive for the gut lining so you know, if you're someone that takes these a lot routinely, just be aware that this may Maybe something and you know, this, this can put you at risk of these, these got conditions ultimately,
36:08
And these ar the tablets that people are taking for painful periods. So it's one week in a month, there's quite a lot of that type of tablet being taken. Further impacting fertility because of the gut.
36:21
Absolutely, yeah. And the whole inflamatory process again, you know, so they corrode and irritate the gut lining and then you get inflammation and potentially the disbyosis and the leaky gut. And you know, other medically I mean, actually, the oral contraceptive pill, you know, has a role to play as well. Actually the pill depletes you would be with women's So, even if you're not taking it now, you have to look at if you were taking it, you can you don't necessarily correct an imbalance straightaway and on your own, and hings like antibiotics. So again, you may not be taking them right now but if you've had a course of antibiotics in the past or quite a few if you're somebody that's had a lot of those medications, this really again alters the bacteria imbalance in the gut because not only does it address the bad bacteria that you're taking them for, but it can also take out the good as well. So, you know, you get better you've taken your course of antibiotics, the reason you took them goes away and you feel better, but actually you probably be left with some kind of bacterial imbalance. So, you know, it's not just about now it's looking at your sort of past health as well. It's looking back up that stream again, isn't it absolutely is where in it. Oh, that's fantastic. It's a lot of them food for thought!
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