0:22

Hey everyone , welcome to another episode of Living

0:25

a Full Life . We are diving even deeper

0:27

into gut health this week . If you didn't

0:29

listen to the last couple of podcasts

0:31

, it's okay . This information is going to be absolutely

0:34

wonderful . Dr Christine Hafer is with me today

0:36

. Hi , hey , and we're going to dive

0:38

into when everything works

0:40

well . We usually take it for granted , but

0:43

we're going to be talking about when things start to not

0:45

work well , what we can do

0:47

to help put it back on track

0:49

, especially with our gut . This one's going to be

0:51

a great one . Take out your pen and paper

0:53

for this one . That's going to be some great tips .

0:56

Okay , so , based

0:59

on research , a lot of what I do , almost

1:01

all that I do , is based on research and

1:03

there's a lot of research when it comes to gut health . There's

1:06

kind of a normal progression , you

1:08

know , when babies are born

1:10

, that they go down and they then

1:12

have good gut health from that . So we sort

1:14

of talked about how to have good health

1:16

good health last time

1:19

, but I missed a couple of key

1:21

, important things , so I wanted to touch base on them

1:23

. But this is kind of the normal flow

1:25

, based on , you know , a lot of research

1:27

. And I'm going to talk about birth and breastfeeding

1:30

, and this is not judgment , this is

1:32

um , you know , if

1:34

things don't go the ideal

1:36

, ideal way , then we sort of have

1:38

an idea of what to do to work on gut health

1:40

and improve it , cause it's always improvable , no

1:43

matter where you are . If you've had everything

1:45

ticked off against you , you know , um

1:52

, you haven't gone down the right path . There's always room for improvement on our gut

1:54

and probably every adult needs to work on their gut health on a regular basis . So , um , even

1:56

if you've done everything perfectly , but here's kind of you know

1:58

, based on research and there's a um , there's

2:01

been a lot of good microbiome research

2:04

. Probably I don't know for the last 15

2:06

years been a lot of good

2:08

microbiome research . Probably , I don't know , for the last 15 years we've

2:10

sort of been involved . There was a company called Ubiome and when we moved

2:12

to Tampa our family actually participated

2:14

in some of the research . So we did stool

2:17

tests for , like our babies and

2:19

our toddlers and ourselves

2:22

and they developed , I think

2:24

I think from what I've talked to

2:26

from these research companies , a

2:28

lot of the norms that we understand for a lot of the gut

2:30

tests . Um , and of course I'm sure there's more than

2:32

one test that did all this , but

2:34

more than one company , probably tons

2:36

Um . But there's a

2:38

, a group called tiny health . They

2:40

do baby tests . So , um

2:43

, babies don't really have a developed

2:45

microbiome Um , babies have leaky

2:47

gut . Um , leaky gut

2:50

is when you have basically intestinal permeability

2:52

so things get in and out . That

2:54

would be less than ideal as an

2:56

adult but for a baby it's normal Um

2:59

, but here's the , the basic flow

3:01

on what would lead to good health , so good

3:03

gut health . So step

3:05

one is mom , so mom's carrying

3:08

a baby and mom has good gut flora

3:10

. A lot

3:12

of moms don't . And now you

3:14

know there's some providers you can see and moms

3:16

can do a vaginal microbiome

3:18

test and see what's growing there . That should and shouldn't

3:20

be , but that's just something regularly checked

3:23

. So ideally a baby is born

3:25

via vaginal birth . If they're born with

3:27

a belly birth , a C-section , then that's okay too , but

3:29

they're probably not going to have some

3:32

of the same bacteria . There's different bacteria and

3:34

that babies have in their guts when they're born . Vaginally

3:36

versus born would be a belly

3:38

birth . So that's

3:41

step one . Step two is breastfeeding , and

3:43

not all moms can breastfeed . Not all moms want to

3:45

breastfeed , and that's fine too . Again , not a judgment

3:47

, but when a mom has a good microbiome

3:49

and she breastfeeds her child and

3:52

there's some debate on how long , but I

3:54

think two years is pretty accepted

3:56

as normal that's not something all moms can do

3:58

. Moms work , Moms are busy , moms

4:00

have issues , we have a lot going on . But

4:09

that would set us up for good health , good gut health . So in saying that babies

4:11

all have a leaky gut , they do and that's purposeful

4:13

. So from what we understand , you

4:15

know , breast milk is a

4:18

lot of it is just fodder

4:20

for gut

4:22

health to grow the microbiome . That's

4:24

a lot of what it does . So yes

4:26

, there are nutrients yes , there are fats . Yes

4:28

, there are proteins , yes , there's , you know , everything

4:31

that a baby needs . It's a perfect food . As

4:34

long you know , even mom that doesn't eat a perfect diet

4:36

has a pretty good quantity

4:39

quality of breast milk . So

4:42

yeah , that's

4:44

really important . Sorry , the dog is here . Our

4:56

dog came up , um , but yeah , so um , the leaky gut really lends to a lot of things going in and

4:59

out of the gut and growing um the microbiome , but also

5:01

nourishing the baby in a better way

5:03

. Um , I don't know what the research is

5:05

on when leaky guts are no longer leaky . I

5:14

can tell you from the research we did with Ubiome that you know it

5:16

takes a couple years for babies to have a more normal .

5:18

Normal quotes looking microbiome , Dr Melillo says . Two

5:20

years to about two years old is when we

5:22

start to develop our

5:25

stop gut .

5:25

Yeah , probably , and it might be

5:27

a bit longer . It might be , and for some people it

5:29

persists , unfortunately . And then we see things

5:32

like food sensitivities , food allergies . There's

5:34

a lot more reasons for that than just leaky gut , but

5:36

that's yeah . Then we have food

5:38

introduction . So when babies

5:40

are sitting , when babies have a good pinch of grass

5:43

and they're no longer none of the tongue thrust

5:45

reflex than food , we talk about

5:47

food , you know

5:49

, eating lots of good fruits and vegetables , slowly

5:52

introducing them to see if your baby responds

5:55

to them or not . I think that's important too , because

5:57

we all have genetic

5:59

predispositions to , you

6:01

know , having a lectin sensitivity or

6:03

an oxalate sensitivity or cell oscillates

6:05

, and some people , you know , have

6:07

the genetic predisposition . They won't have that

6:10

gene expressed . That's called like a SNP . Whether

6:14

it's expressed or not . It's a different story . That's environmental

6:16

, but you

6:18

know . And

6:21

so we can look at when we're introducing

6:23

different foods to babies , whether or not they're having certain

6:26

reactions . So skin reactions would show up . We

6:29

think about skin reactions a lot in leaky gut

6:31

, but kids have leaky guts . So

6:33

one of the things that's important and

6:36

there's a lot of good research on this when we

6:38

introduce things that are more allergenic

6:40

, so more kids have egg

6:42

allergies and peanut allergies or

6:45

gluten allergies . When we introduce

6:47

them between there's eight

6:49

to 18 months . For some reason they

6:52

seem to do better with them . It develops less things

6:54

. So a lot of people want

6:57

to avoid gluten for a really long time

6:59

, but probably it's a good idea

7:01

to introduce them between eight and 18 months

7:03

. Peanuts that's a big one for peanuts too , and I know there's a lot of controversy on peanuts

7:05

, and it's pretty good idea to introduce it between eight and 18 months . Um , peanuts that's a big one for peanuts too , and I know there's a lot of controversy

7:07

on peanuts , and it's pretty terrifying if you

7:09

have a child with a peanut allergy , right , or another

7:12

anaphylactic reality or allergy , but

7:14

yeah , um . Next

7:16

is eating a diet rich in

7:19

fiber , um , polyphenols

7:21

, um , getting good protein intake , which is

7:23

again smaller for kids than it is for adults

7:26

. Adults eat a lot more Um

7:28

. And then avoiding as many ultra

7:30

processed foods as possible . It's always

7:32

really important . So sugary cereals are not our friends

7:35

. Candy is not our friends . Small

7:37

portions are okay , but this

7:39

should not be the bulk of our diet . The bulk of our diet should

7:41

be fruits , vegetables , proteins , healthy

7:43

grains , um foods , all

7:46

that , and then you know . The last piece of the puzzle

7:48

, I think , is that we want to be

7:50

on as few antibiotics as possible . You

7:52

can't avoid it sometimes and

7:55

some you know pediatricians are more apt

7:57

to hand out antibiotics

7:59

than others , but we want to

8:02

avoid them as much as possible . If you

8:04

do have to have them , you know , do things like probiotics

8:06

, good foods after things

8:08

like that . One

8:11

more chink in the chain that can happen is different exposures

8:13

that can cause certain allergies or sensitivities

8:16

. So mold is one of those . We

8:18

live in Florida . There is a lot

8:20

of mold here . Mold's everywhere . It's

8:22

easy for mold to grow , it's easy to

8:24

be exposed to mold , and

8:26

mold is one of those things that can trigger

8:28

a whole immune cascade that can lead to things

8:30

like food allergies where someone wouldn't have it before

8:33

they might have it following the mold exposure

8:35

. Chemicals can

8:37

cause sensitivities . Again

8:40

, genetics can play a part . So there's

8:43

just a lot of things that can go

8:45

right . When things don't go right , then we

8:47

kind of talk about . We can do a more deep

8:49

dive into what are the bigger conditions

8:51

that can go wrong

8:53

. So when we talk about

8:56

what's not right , a GI

8:58

map , a gut test , a stool test

9:00

will kind of . Let us know if there's something

9:02

growing in the gut that shouldn't be there or if

9:05

there's intestinal health markers like fat

9:08

in the stool which could be indicative

9:11

of a few things in inflammation or

9:13

too little bile . We

9:16

can look at zonulin , which is a measure of leaky

9:18

gut . So leaky gut is pretty . You

9:20

know big People talk about leaky gut

9:22

. Oh yeah , leaky gut . Basically what it is intestinal

9:24

is intestinal permeability . So again we talked about you know big people talk about leaky gut . Oh

9:26

yeah , leaky gut . Basically what it is intestinal is intestinal permeability . So um , again we talked

9:28

about . You know that babies all have it . That's

9:31

normal , they're supposed to , and then it starts to

9:33

go away around age two um

9:35

, normally . But basically

9:37

it means that the um , the

9:40

enterocytes in the gut , have too

9:42

much space between them , so there are proteins that hold

9:44

them close together and when they start to lyse

9:46

away , there's different proteins like occludin

9:49

. Zonulin is the one that we measure

9:51

for a leaky gut test in

9:54

the stool and that would tell us if there

9:56

is a degree of leaky gut . So everybody's

9:59

got some zonulin . Everyone has got a certain

10:01

degree of leaky gut . Even

10:10

if you don't , if you have the most perfect sealed gut ever there are still . You know macrophages are

10:12

still going to go in through the enterocyte lining or not the lining , the holes between them . There

10:14

will be small ones to sample what's in the gut , to see

10:16

if there are pathogens in there , if

10:18

there are other things going on . So you're supposed

10:20

to have some amount of communication , but not

10:22

too much . If you have too much then food

10:25

goes leaking out . Big food particles . Gluten

10:27

is a really big food particle . Not

10:30

everybody needs to be gluten-free . Some people

10:32

really benefit from it . Gliadin

10:34

is one of those things . An anti-gliadin IgA

10:37

is something we measure also in the GM

10:39

app that shows us if someone is having an immune

10:41

reaction to gluten . There are food sensitivity

10:43

tests that can tell you if you're having reactions

10:45

to things . They can

10:47

be helpful for some people more helpful for kids

10:49

, I think , than adults or somebody

10:52

that's got a lot of weird mystery symptoms

10:54

. Because they're

10:56

not the most reliable tests , you could take one

10:58

one day and then another day and

11:00

they could be a bit different . There are

11:02

certain things in the food sensitivity test that would make

11:04

me think leaky gut . If you're having lots of small

11:07

immune reactions to a ton of different things

11:09

, that would be a sign of leaky gut , yeah

11:13

, and then you know , with the stool test , with the GI map

11:15

, you're looking for things like pathogens which

11:17

can cause all sorts of problems in the gut

11:19

lining , problems with the immune

11:21

system can have yeast . Everybody knows

11:23

about candida . Or , if you don't know about candida

11:25

, it's an opportunistic yeast

11:28

that should live in small quantities in

11:30

the gut and you know , pretty

11:32

much in the whole gut

11:36

lining . So gut lining goes from mouth

11:39

, sinuses could be included , because

11:41

things drip down there , down the esophagus

11:44

, the entire small , the

11:52

stomach , the small intestine , um the colon , so everywhere . So when kidney takes over , it only

11:54

really takes over , um , when there's not enough good bacteria to keep it

11:56

down . So , um

11:58

, that's why it's so important to have a good

12:00

microbiome balance . Um , the other

12:02

thing you know we can have parasites . Parasites

12:05

are really big , especially in the

12:07

natural health world . There's some debate about

12:09

how many parasites are there . When you do parasitic

12:13

testing there's only certain ones that can

12:15

test . For Some people think that everybody has

12:17

parasites . Some people think that maybe

12:19

we should have a certain amount of parasites Not

12:22

so sure that that's true . And then

12:24

dysbiosis . So dysbiosis is

12:26

when you have the wrong kinds

12:28

of bacteria . So maybe you have all

12:31

the right bacteria , but you have them in the wrong

12:33

quantity . So normally

12:35

we should have these commensal or keystone bacteria

12:37

, those 12 or 13 that we normally check

12:40

for . When they're too small

12:42

or some of them are overgrown , they can cause some issues

12:44

that can lead to opportunistic bacteria

12:47

to grow like strep , staph material

12:50

bacteria , other things like that . And then you

12:52

know , in the gut too we

12:54

can look at autoimmune bacteria

12:58

, so basically bacteria that

13:00

we know that when they're present , or when they're present in

13:02

too high quantities , they

13:04

can elicit immune response in our body

13:06

. So bacteria in our gut are

13:09

always giving other signals to other

13:11

bacteria . We're

13:14

more bacteria than we are human

13:16

cells . I don't know what the exact number

13:18

is , but we have more bacteria in our body

13:20

than we have human cells . So we are incredibly

13:22

dependent on the right amount

13:25

of bacteria being in the right spot . So when

13:28

the wrong ones are there , you know they're giving off chemical

13:30

signals to each other . They

13:32

are changing and hijacking our body

13:34

in a way that maybe shouldn't be done . They

13:36

are changing the way that our immune

13:38

response happens , which cytokines

13:40

are being released . So certain

13:43

bacteria are known to be more inflammatory

13:45

. Certain bacteria are

13:47

related to certain

13:49

autoimmune diseases

13:52

and disorders . For instance , prevotella

14:01

is linked to rheumatoid arthritis . That's a big one . That's known . Fusobacterium is one . There's just

14:03

this big research paper that came out about how it's linked

14:05

to colon cancer and

14:07

they were just doing an oral microbiome test and they

14:10

were finding a lot of fusobacterium in the mouth

14:12

and then the link to metastatic

14:16

colon cancer later . So

14:19

, and it's also related to inflammatory

14:21

bowel disease . We know as well . So

14:25

, yeah , the bacteria really matters

14:27

. When it's not

14:29

going well and you have

14:31

you know symptoms . You

14:34

have gut symptoms . That's probably the easiest way

14:36

to figure out that you've got a microbiome issue

14:38

is gut symptoms , but it can be skin issues

14:40

. So the gut and

14:42

the skin are linked

14:44

so strongly we can't separate

14:46

them . Whenever somebody comes in , especially

14:48

kids with skin issues , we

14:50

look to the gut Autoimmunity

14:53

. So gut health is

14:56

a root cause for autoimmunity , chronic

14:58

infections also . But when we

15:00

think about gut health and we think about something like

15:02

dysbiosis that can be seen in the body as an

15:04

infection , when the wrong bacteria

15:06

are growing in the wrong spot , it changes the

15:08

way everything happens Because , again , we are more bacteria

15:10

than we are human cells , so they really

15:12

affect everything in our body . Food

15:17

, allergies , of course , you know , we

15:19

kind of talked about some of the triggers for food allergies

15:21

. There's a lot of triggers we don't understand

15:23

for food allergies too . So

15:25

it's not just mold exposure , viral

15:27

infections . There's

15:31

a lot of reasons . We don't know why kids , kids

15:33

, adults to have reactions

15:35

to food . So food allergy is

15:38

different than a food sensitivity . A food allergy

15:40

is an IgE reaction

15:43

. So those are bigger cells

15:45

or bigger signalers

15:48

. They have a bigger effect than you know an

15:50

IgG or an IgA reaction

15:52

as a food sensitivity and that affects

15:54

our immune system as well . So our immune system

15:57

when it has an IgE response

15:59

, it can be pretty loud , right , you can lead to anaphylaxis

16:01

, it can lead to swelling . I

16:04

think we used to think in terms of allergies

16:06

being really , really loud . But I think

16:09

that a lot of allergists are kind of doing

16:11

more testing and finding more allergies in kids too

16:13

. But the IgG and the IgA

16:15

are the food sensitivity reactions . We also call

16:17

them delayed hypersensitivity , because

16:32

you have leaky gut and certain bacteria have affected your gut , lining enough that that leaky gut has

16:34

started and there is some food leaking through and you've been eating a lot

16:36

of dairy . So now

16:38

your body has found the dairy , has attacked

16:40

, it thinks that it's a foreign pathogen

16:43

. And every time you eat dairy your

16:45

body has an immune reaction to it

16:47

, not IgE , not that big reaction

16:49

, but the delayed sensitivity . So

16:51

symptoms might start three days after you've

16:53

had that that dairy . So

16:56

, um , while

16:58

it's harder to pinpoint things like

17:00

food sensitivities , they definitely are something

17:02

that takes away and changes our body's

17:05

reaction to things . And

17:08

then you can kind of go down the path of food reactions

17:11

. So specific chemicals or molecules in foods

17:13

I don't think

17:15

these . You know we all have genetic

17:17

predispositions to maybe respond

17:20

to these things or not . Just because you

17:22

have , you can do genetic tests and if it shows that you

17:24

have a lectin

17:26

insensitivity or a lectin intolerance

17:29

, you may never experience

17:33

that , but if you have some gut issues

17:35

or a viral infection and then your body starts

17:37

to react to that , so lectins are

17:39

one . Lectins are in a

17:41

lot of different things . So a lot of these things are plant

17:43

matter , which is a bugger because we need a lot of

17:45

good plant foods fruits , fruits

17:48

, vegetables , greens to have

17:50

a healthy microbiome . But if our body's reacting to

17:52

them they're going to make us feel pretty cruddy and

17:55

it's going to be hard for us to eat them without our body

17:57

having an immune response to them . So histamine

17:59

is one . Histamine is linked

18:01

a lot with autoimmunity . A

18:03

lot of people who have autoimmune disorders um

18:05

find they do better on a

18:07

low histamine diet or histamine intolerance type

18:10

diet . It's challenging but

18:12

it can help . Oxalates are another . Oxalates

18:14

are in so many plant foods , biggest

18:17

in things like almonds , spinach

18:19

. You can

18:21

do a quick Google search and see what

18:24

different

18:26

food things are in different things . Salicylates

18:30

are another one . Then there's more right

18:32

, there's a bunch of different molecules

18:34

but these are the typical big ones . The histamine

18:36

, oxalates , lectins and salicylates are

18:38

the biggest one that affect people . So that's

18:41

another road to go down . If you're having

18:43

food reactions and you're not sure what's going on

18:45

, yeah

18:48

, and then in the know , in the long list of things

18:50

that can go wrong , a lot of things

18:52

that we're seeing recently lots

18:55

of small intestinal bacteria overgrowth

18:57

, so SIBO can

19:00

be caused . Basically , what SIBO is

19:03

is in

19:05

our small intestine . We should not have much bacteria

19:07

. So most of the gut bacteria in

19:09

our body is

19:12

in our colon , and so our colon is responsible

19:14

for fermenting foods . It's responsible

19:16

for producing butyrate there's so many things . It's

19:18

responsible for producing

19:21

certain nutrients , things like that . But

19:23

when we start to develop

19:25

more bacteria in our small intestine

19:27

where it shouldn't be . That

19:34

causes a whole host of things . That's another trigger for autoimmunity . That's

19:36

a trigger for immune issues , because our small intestine is supposed to be absorbing

19:39

water , it's supposed to be

19:41

absorbing nutrients . It's not supposed

19:43

to be breaking down fermenting food , like

19:46

our colon is . So

19:48

a lot of the bacteria that

19:50

like to grow there will live off of

19:52

things like methane or sulfur . So

19:54

when someone has

19:56

suspected SIBO , there

19:59

is a breath test that can check it . We

20:02

used to think it was either the methane

20:04

or the sulfur , but now we start to know that there

20:06

are different subtypes , so the breath

20:08

test isn't always the best . One of the best things

20:10

you can do with SIBO is to go on

20:13

a low FODMAP SIBO specific

20:15

diet temporarily and see if your

20:17

symptoms improve Again . With histamines

20:19

too , that'd be another way you can test

20:21

if you have histamine intolerance or not is to

20:23

avoid histamine

20:26

laden foods , histamine

20:28

liberating foods . Um , there

20:30

is a really good website that is uh

20:32

, I think it's mass cell three , 60.com , and they

20:35

talk about a lot of these different foods and

20:37

histamines and the different levels of them

20:39

, and they have specific diets . So if you ever think why

20:41

do I react to this specific food ? You

20:43

can you know if you've been reacting to it for a while

20:45

. You can go on and you can figure out oh , it's got leptins

20:48

in it or it's got histamines in it and maybe

20:50

I have an overall issue with those things . But

20:53

the trick is that even

20:55

people with pretty overt histamine intolerance

20:58

will react to one food and not others that

21:00

other people have histamine intolerance react to . So

21:03

it's very specific and it's very

21:05

challenging to figure out what exactly you're reacting to

21:07

. But

21:14

you know , sibo can be triggered by decreased motility in the gut . Some

21:16

of the things that lead to decreased motility can be

21:18

gallbladder that's not functioning properly , too

21:21

little bile . That can be

21:23

caused by things like estrogen imbalance

21:25

too much estrogen versus

21:28

the unopposed progesterone

21:30

. Um , low stomach acid is really big

21:32

and so many people are on proton pump

21:34

inhibitors because they think they

21:36

have heartburn , because they have the gut , the burning

21:38

in their gut right , the burning in their stomach , um

21:41

. But then it's like 48 hours

21:43

of being on a PPI . It

21:45

starts to decrease the um , the

21:47

HDL pumps , the hydrochloric

21:49

acid pumps , and that can cause

21:52

SIBO . You know it doesn't happen

21:54

immediately , it doesn't happen in all people . But it's

21:56

one of those things that is linked . And then if you've

21:58

had previous surgeries or previous trauma

22:01

, that can cause um an

22:03

issue with how things are moving . So

22:05

a lot of people that have had multiple

22:07

abdominal surgeries will have um adhesions in their gut . So a lot of people that have had multiple abdominal surgeries

22:09

will have adhesions in their gut . So

22:11

that decreases the mobility . So

22:14

what do we do when

22:17

we have gut issues ? So

22:19

I just threw a ton of information at you

22:21

. Some of it probably wasn't super necessary

22:23

to hear . But what do we do ? Testing

22:26

Testing seems to be number one and

22:28

if you do a stool test

22:31

, you need to rule out pathogens , you

22:33

need to rule out yeast , you need to rule out parasites

22:35

, you need to see what is growing in your gut , what's not

22:37

growing in your gut , and then when you

22:39

find those things , you work on correcting them . So there's

22:42

a lot of different things you can do Lifestyle

22:44

changes I typically find

22:46

that most people have enough

22:49

issue with their microbiome that

22:51

just doing a prebiotic and probiotic isn't

22:53

going to fix it . They need things

22:55

removed . Strep

22:58

is really common . I'm seeing a ton of E coli

23:00

, which we know isn't great . I'm

23:02

seeing so much E coli lately and

23:05

people that don't even have really severe gut

23:07

issues . You would think that E coli , they'd be super sick

23:09

and they're just not , but they don't feel well

23:11

, they can't figure out why . Um , yeast

23:15

parasites , these things all need to be removed

23:17

and fixed , and then we need to work on the microbiome balance

23:19

after too . So it's

23:22

a long process . Gut healing takes a

23:24

minimum of six months , and

23:27

that includes all the lifestyle changes that need to

23:29

be done as well while it's worked on

23:31

. Anything else .

23:34

No , you see parents and people

23:36

defaulting to the

23:38

literature , which is fantastic , and they're like you know

23:40

. I've gone sugar-free , dairy-free

23:42

, gluten-free to try and help myself

23:45

because they're struggling or their kids struggling , and those

23:47

are , I think , great starts . But

23:49

Dr Christine just lined up

23:51

a whole bunch of reasons why that may

23:53

not be enough or it

23:55

may not be the right thing . Maybe we

23:57

truly don't have the dairy issue . It doesn't

23:59

matter . And these tests , especially

24:01

like stool tests , are easily accessible . You can

24:04

do it yourself online and send them in and get the

24:06

report . But , as you can

24:08

see , the flora and the microbiome

24:10

is so complex that having a coach that

24:12

knows what they're doing or a doctor that knows what they're doing

24:14

goes way

24:17

further than just being put on an antibiotic

24:19

for 10 days and then hoping for the best

24:23

. So that's what we help patients with and when they're

24:25

frustrated , that's where functional

24:27

medicine comes in and you start doing the right

24:29

tests at the right time . But , like

24:32

Dr Haver said , it takes a while . This

24:34

is not a one week thing or

24:36

one month thing . It takes a while and there has

24:38

to be a game plan to get to the finish

24:40

line with our guts .

24:42

Yeah , yeah , it's worth it , though , you

24:45

know , when people come in and they've got symptoms

24:48

that may not even be related to gut , but we talk

24:51

about , we go through all the symptoms

24:53

and all the health history and we , I think , wow

24:55

. I think that maybe your gut was something we need

24:57

to check on and they work on it . It's

24:59

amazing what goes away . You

25:02

know , sometimes people need to do multiple

25:05

rounds of things . Right , they need extra work

25:07

, but hormones can improve

25:09

when gut health improves . Immune tolerance

25:12

can improve when gut health improves . And

25:20

a lot of people who you know it's fine to cut things up in the temporary , but when

25:22

you are living off of some people come to me eating

25:24

10 foods because they can't tolerate other things

25:27

. That sucks and

25:30

that's not a long-term way to live . And the goal of any gut health plan should

25:32

always get you to a point

25:34

where you can be eating as many healthy

25:37

foods as possible . And then you

25:39

know I like the 80 , 20 rule for

25:42

gut healing . You probably need to be pretty

25:44

close to a hundred percent for lifestyle changes for

25:46

healing . But if you eat

25:48

healthy and whole

25:50

, clean foods 80% of the time

25:52

and then 10 to 20% of the time you

25:54

know you're eating things that are less than healthy , that's

25:57

okay . But not everybody

25:59

can just decide to do that and

26:01

easily get their gut health when

26:03

it's really wrecked really

26:05

needs to improve . But it's just amazing to see

26:08

how simply you know when

26:10

people come in with these crazy symptoms

26:12

and there's so much work they need to

26:14

do and you know they're struggling so

26:16

much just focusing on the gut

26:18

to start and then doing a cleanup with hormones

26:20

, doing a cleanup with , you know , some

26:22

immune supplements

26:25

or whatever else we

26:27

figure out needs to happen after , and

26:29

then it becomes a lot easier . When you work on gut

26:31

health first , then you can do

26:34

easier things in the future .

26:36

Yeah , that was great . A lot of food for thought . The

26:38

nice thing about functional medicine is it can be done virtually

26:41

, and most of it is done virtually . So if you need

26:43

some help , contact us at info at fulllifetampacom

26:46

. We will guide you in the right direction . Whether

26:49

we can or cannot help you , we'll find you the right help that

26:51

you need . That's the first step to getting the help

26:53

that you need . Visit us at fulllifetampacom

26:55

. And just because it says Tampa , doesn't matter

26:57

where you live , anywhere in Florida or United States

26:59

or Canada , we can help you with all

27:01

the labs and things that we can do

27:04

right down the street from you . It's either blood work or

27:06

a kit to the house and we can help you

27:08

out . So reach out and any other questions you have . We

27:10

love this stuff . Thanks for tuning in . See you next

27:12

week .