The Microbiome Makeover: Fiber, Food & Gut Resilience - with Anu Simh

Welcome to the Renegade Nutrition Podcast, the show for rule breakers, truth seekers and anyone ready to challenge the status quo in health. I'm your host, Elainey Welch, Certified Nutrition Specialist. Each week we uncover the real science behind nutrition detox, longevity and mental wellness, empowering you to take your health into your own hands and live boldly, naturally and on your own terms. Welcome to the Renegade Nutrition Podcast. Today I interview a new Sim. New Sim is a Board Certified Functional Health Coach, founder of Nine Arms Wellness, and author of the forthcoming book Flourish from Within Feed you'd gut for lifelong Health. Her work centers on a science backed approach to gut health, revealing how the microbiome influences everything from our metabolism to our mental clarity. Anew has helped hundreds of clients overcome chronic health struggles not through restrictive dieting, but by rebalancing their gut. And in our conversation today, we talk about all things gut health. We talk about what a resilient microbiome looks like, what a diverse microbiome looks like, some of the symptoms and signs we may have if our gut microbiome is unbalanced or unhealthy, and how to cultivate a diverse and resilient gut microbiome, specifically through incorporating more fiber into our diet and what that fiber looks like. We talk about things like probiotics and fermented foods and the role they can play. We talk about stress and sleep and how those things influence our gut microbiome along with diet, of course, and exercise. So it's a really great conversation. I'm excited for you all to listen to it. And every Wednesday that we record our podcast. We also livestream to Twitch so you can go to the Twitch platform if you'd like to chat with us during our livestream. And you can find My channel on Twitch is renegadenutrition. So I suggest if you'd like to chat and ask questions live during an interview and have a chance for us to answer your questions, then you can follow me on Twitch. Renegadenutrition. You can also follow me on social media therenegadenutritionist. So thanks for joining in today and I look forward to having this conversation with Anew.

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Welcome back Renegades. Welcome to the Renegade Nutrition Podcast. I'm really excited for today's guest. We have a new spot. Sim and Anu, you are a certified health coach Board certified health coach and the founder of the nine Arms of Wellness. And then you are the author of the book Flourish from Within. Feed you'd gut for lifelong health. And we're going to talk all about gut health today and the gut microbiome and the importance of the Gut Microbiome. But first of all, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Eleni. It's a pleasure.

Yeah. And I have to say, I was listening to you on some podcasts, and I had never listened to the podcast, the Low Carb mds. I think I've heard their name before, but I listened to your episode with them, and I just want to tell you, I was so wildly impressed by you on that show. Like, you know, thank you for saying.

That, because I left that show feeling like, oh, my gosh, you know, what did I walk into?

Yes, it was a little bit confrontational, wasn't it? But I just, I resonated so deeply with the message that you were trying to share, which is that health is bio, individual, and you have to work with a client and their unique situation and find what's going to work best for them. And something I've been really feeling just recently, I would say within the past month, I've started to just really kind of feel it in my bones, which is this sense of division that's in the health world that is, like, really unsettling to me because it's really become a difficult territory for the average person to navigate. And like, today more than ever, I think so many people are wanting to take their health into their hands. And they're going to places like social media, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, you know, they're listening to podcasts and they're getting it from here, there, here, there, everywhere. You know, it's like a bit of a. And the message they're hearing is very diversified, which is because we're a diversified people. But it's terribly confusing. And I've just been feeling more and more recently like, can we just focus on the things we agree on? Of which I think there's more than we realize as health professionals. Can we emphasize the things we agree on and, like, stop hyper focus, focusing on the things that we don't? And in that podcast episode, you know, I'm not familiar with the hosts, and I certainly. I don't want to throw any shade at them. I think they do a phenomenal job of hosting that podcast. They obviously are doing very well, and it's not an easy space to be in. But there. There were two hosts, you know, and one of them really wanted to facilitate the conversation, and the other one kind of just seemed really set on their viewpoint. And even though they kept saying, you know, I'm open, I'm open to hearing it, they really weren't. I mean, as like a listener, I didn't perceive that they were actually open. I felt that, you know, that particular host was really, like, what they were more fixated on was, well, you said this, and I don't agree with that point, and I want to dissect it. And I was just like, this is not beneficial to your listeners because I feel like I'm here to listen to this guest and this conversation about the microbiome, and instead she's having to spend all of this time, like, constantly responding to your particular, like, nuances and the issues you have with those nuances. So, anyway, I just wanted to say I was really impressed with how you handled yourself. There's so much diversity. You know, I'm sure there's lots of points within the world of nutrition that maybe you and I wouldn't see eye to eye on. And I just don't care. Like, I'd rather just have the conversation and discuss the things that really matter and, like, focus on the, like, what are the things that we really, like, understand and know from a scientific perspective? What is, you know, what are we kind of guessing about? And how can we find, like, a common ground within this world so that people who listen to a podcast walk away with a really, like, sure sense of where to start instead of walking away being like, well, okay, am I carnivore? Am I vegan? Am I keto, Am I paleo? Am I, like, am I vegetarian? Am I Mediterranean diet? Am I dash diet? Like, what am I supposed to do? You know, it's like, okay, what are the foundational things that overlap all of those different dietary strategies? What seems to work for many people? And can we talk about the fact that you're a unique individual and what works for this influencer on TikTok is not going to be what works for you because you're very different from that person.

Yeah, you said it so aptly and so correctly. And when you said, I feel it in my bones, that's exactly where I am at. You know, when I am on Instagram, I am so nervous about saying even something like, I'll get a dm, saying, what is your favorite supplement? I don't have a favorite supplement, and the favorite supplement for me may not be the right one for you. It depends on your bio individuality. It depends on what? What are some things that are your weakest links? You know, what are your genetic propensities to disease? I mean, it's very hard to say. And yes, there are many people who promote supplements or certain. Put themselves in a certain bucket. I don't feel Comfortable doing that. And as a coach and as someone who's done a lot of research on this microbiome space, I just feel like if we start going after specific nutrients rather than the, the overall message, we're losing something in that conversation. We are. Instead of making things more clear to the people who look to us for some sort of guidance, you know, because that's why we're doing what we're doing. Right? So somewhere in us we see, hey, I have something to share and I want to share that. But if we become so micro focused on this particular nutrient, be it, I don't know, beef tallow or seed oils or something like that, or even chasing labels, I mean, imagine the psychological damage that does to someone. Let's say someone is just vegan for ethical reasons or maybe the carbon footprint, right?

And.

But somewhere along the line, their health takes a beating. They don't know how to do this, they're not getting adequate protein, or they're probably just saying, I just want to have some cheese. And imagine the pressure it puts on that person because they made this big. They've taken the stance about people being vegan and all of a sudden they feel like having a little something from a previous world. I mean, the entire community is going to gang up on them and say, how dare you? I mean, can you imagine that? And the same thing with the carnivore community if they. And that's exactly what the other MD was trying to point out. Listen, we can be carnivore, but can we be open to the fact that there's an incredible amount of body of research done around the microbio and we should look at it? It sounded like a very sensible approach to health and wellness and nutrition. And I don't know, that seems to be getting more and more difficult these days, you know, and it's almost like you have to pick and choose the podcast that you go on because of that. And some are like, ready to debate. It's like, go with all of your studies. Show them that what you're saying is right. Oh my gosh. I didn't get into this to do. I mean, I just want to help people just understand a little bit more about the microbiome and perhaps just have a general idea of nutrition and diet and lifestyle. You know, like, this may help, this may not. You know, so really looking at the forest and not the trees.

Absolutely, yeah. And I think, you know, in today's world of social media, there's a lot of opportunity for influencers who are not health experts. To be able to take something that worked for them and turn it into, like, a cult following. And it's pretty wild. You know, I was looking at a Carnivore account and there were things I really liked about her message and what she said. But I just noticed there was also, from her, a lot of animosity. And if anybody in the comments disagreed with what she was saying, it was like a huge verbal attack from her. And I just thought, well, okay, this thing is working for you for now. What are you gonna do if three years from now it's not working for you anymore? How are you going to now bridge that gap? Because it seems to me you've created a pretty wide gap. And it's like you said, it's the same thing. I'm so, to me, like, I encourage my clients so much, you know, intuitive eating and leaning into that and, like, listen to your body. So for the person that's been vegan for five years and they start craving cheese, it's like, what is your body trying to tell you? Your body is telling you you're missing something and it's looking for it. Right? That's what those cravings could be. And it's like, now you've just created this whole religion and this whole ideology around this way of eating, and you're not listening to your body anymore. But it really stood out to me, especially with that Carnivore account. You know, I just was like, she's so angry. So first of all, what does that tell me about her mood and what's happening? You know, maybe within her body? She's not being able to support all of the right hormones that's causing her to be kind of aggressive.

Oh, she's not feeding her microbes.

She's not feeding her microbes.

I mean, if she's not eating any fiber at all. Yeah, this is. I mean, you have to kind of look at nutrition. You have to look at today's just based on what are the studies available? What kind of RCT are there, or epidemiological studies? I mean, that is all we can base these things on. You know, predimed, lion's heart, you know, all the big studies, what are they saying? And we are no longer in a situation where we just have one or two studies on the microbiome. We have an incredible amount of research around it. And even in. I can say that. And I can also say that we're still in the infancy of so much that we're learning about these forever guests and the kind of things that they do for us. A simple thing. Eleni, just what you said about craving, you know, I mean, cravings could be from the lack of certain beneficial bacteria, maybe the pathogenic bacteria sending signals that dopamine downregulation, or this message of because the pathogens want to survive, you know, And I know I go on many podcasts where we sort of romanticize this relationship we have with the microbes. You know, yes, we do have a symbiotic partnership, but ultimately they want to survive as much as we want to survive. So what are they doing for their own benefit? So I believe that all this research points to a few things that I took away from it. One was you can't really outsource a bad diet. And a bad diet is a diet that does not have just the basic things like adequate protein, your macros, you know, I don't know when macros like, like carbohydrate became this evil thing, you know, like, I, I don't understand that, you know, I mean, yes, and again, even grouping carbohydrates into refined versus microbiome accessible carbohydrates, I think is a good thing just for people to understand that that is what a lot of people are talking about when they demonize carbohydrates. They really want to demonize white carb, you know, carbs without any nutrition. But what happens is there's not a clear understanding of the refined versus complex. Everything gets put into this one little big bucket of bad things. And that's not helping us because if you really think about it, carbides are a source of energy. I mean, there's so many good things that comes from just having adequate carbohydrates, good fats, you know, I mean, this does not have to be so complicated, you know, I mean, if you have macros to support your diet and you have a good amount of micronutrients that we don't get, our body doesn't make vitamins and minerals and antioxidants that we get from our food. And really looking at food as, hey, food is, can be medicine and food can be a slow toxin. And only you, with your infinite wisdom about your body can decide if it is the latter or the former. I mean, we, even we as nutritionists or coaches or doctors, how would we know we don't live your day to day experience with your body. You know, the same nutrient could have such conflicting, you know, people could have such conflicting experiences with the same nutrient based on where the microbiome is, where the immune system is where how they are processing their protein or their carbohydrate. It is. Nutrition is so darn complicated. And that's why I can't really do little sound bites of this is good for you. Go with it. I would feel so irresponsible. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. So I stay away from that.

Yeah, same, same. And I think I used to be a lot more dogmatic about it than I am now for our listeners, because we're recording live on Twitch. I think there may be a number of people in the audience who have probably heard gut microbiome and microbiome and gut brain connection, and, like, maybe they've heard some of these terms around or they've heard it on social media. But I'd love if you would just from your more, like, expert perspective, cover what is our gut microbiome and what are some of its implications in our overall physiology and health?

Okay, I'll try to do that and not nerd out.

You can nerd out with me. Yeah, we'll just have to keep it under two hours.

Yeah. So. Well, we have microbes, we have bacteria, you know, archaea, fungi, all of these different things living in us, on us, and they've always been a part of our existence. And so I really look at them as forever guests. You, you know, you just feel less lonely when you think about that they're there helping us or maybe causing problems, depending on how we feed them. And there are trillions of them in our gut. And for the most part, I really focus on the gut microbiome because majority of clients who come to me are struggling with metabolic issues, be it obesity or type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, things like that. And they just want to bring that metabolic flexibility back into their lives. And I feel like the microbiome has a huge role to play in it, and every study is showing us that. So just to simplify, there are trillions of bacteria living in our gut, in our colon, which is the last part of your digestive tract, and before things leave us. And they do a lot for us, and when we sort of evolved with them, and we've kind of handed over certain tasks to them, like digesting fiber. So when we eat something, let's say we have veggies or we have beans or any. Anything from the plant kingdom has fiber. So most of the protein and other things are digested in the upper digested parts. And by the time it reaches our colon, the undigested part of the food is fiber. We don't have the capacity to digest it. We leave it to our friends, our microbes, to do the digesting for us. And here's the interesting part. When they digest this fiber, regardless of the broccoli that you ate or the black bean soup that you had for supper, they digest that fiber and they produce some really healthy compounds for us. And they're called short chain fatty acids, butyrate in particular. And they help us in so many ways. Blood sugar balance, reducing inflammation, keeping an eye on that, weight regain. There are many things. Immune system, for example, all of that and the gut lining, making sure that your gut lining is nice and strong. There are many things that are happening even at that level. And when things go awry and we're not feeding them a lot fiber, fiber is probably the nutrient that we are very, very low in. Maybe 15 grams that we're eating or less. And so they're starving. So these microbes are starving. And so let's say you are a carnivore or you're eating a lot of, you know, processed foods or whatever. So the protein should be digested in the upper digestive parts of your digestive tract. But if you're eating too much or you're not not digesting the protein, it ends up in the colon. And there are enough bacteria that are really adept at digesting the protein, which, which they will because there's no fiber present. But the, the part that I think I would like people to understand, I think this is supported by science and a lot of studies, is when scientists looked at the fecal matter of people who didn't have a lot of fiber but had a lot of protein. The pathogenic bacteria, for lack of a better word, would digest the protein, but produce a little bit of short chain fatty acids, but a lot of toxic metabolites like ammonia, like hydrogen sulfide, like polyamines, picrosol, that in long term is not good for us. So that is something that I do focus on, because if someone is struggling, someone comes to me and say, I'm bloated all the time. I have cravings all the time. I mean, there's something happening when there's bloating, there's imbalance, there's putrefication, there's this gut motility that is compromised. Everything is going very slowly, you know, moving very slowly. So the first step to look into this is what is happening with the diet. Is there something that's not making the transition easier? So, so that's where the gut microbiome really plays a huge role. And from the immune system perspective. Think of these microbes as your trainers of the immune system. They tell the immune system, hey, this is a friend, this is a foe. Be neutral to this party. So they do a lot of that because 70% of the immune system is in your gut lining. And it's a perfect opportunity for having this conversation with these microbes. But when your diversity decreases, you have less and less of those excursions, less and less of those conversations happening. Is there any doubt today we have so many allergies, food, food driven illnesses, everything autoimmunity on the rise. Everything starts with that conversation between the immune system and your microbes. And the, the oral tolerance is low. I mean, I hadn't heard of a lot of these things like corn allergy, peanut allergy, you know, everything is on the rise. EpiPens at schools, mothers having to struggle with their children having, who are allergic to so many things. Did it come from that microbiome that they inherited? How did they feed their children from 0 to 3 years when the diversity is becoming more adult, like in their microbial population? So many things to think about. But it doesn't have to be complicated. We can simplify that by growing the right kind of bacteria, you know, and not feeding the more pathogenic ones. So rather than going after the pathogenic guys, these are the bad guys. I'm going to kill them. Just say, I'm just going to grow enough good guys that they take care of the battle. For me, it sounds a little bit more, for me, it just feels a little bit more doable than how many bad guys are you going to kill, you know? So I think from that perspective, eating a food that's rich in a diverse diet with lots of different fibers, prebiotic fibers that are high in different kinds of oligosaccharides and pectin and resistant starch. If that is very complicated for the listener, I'm just saying anything that is a whole unprocessed plant source is the way to feed your microbiome.

Yeah, absolutely. And what would for our listeners? Because I want to get more into that dietary side of things. So I have two questions. I'm like, which way do I take it? But for our listeners, what are some of those signs you mentioned? A few cravings, bloatings, maybe like weight gain. What are some of the other signs and symptoms that a person might notice that could tell them, hey, my, my gut microbiome might be compromised. What can they look for?

Well, I mean, from a gut perspective, it's usually that imbalance shows up in, you know, bloating. A lot of my female clients are just release. They just go into it, oh, I'm bloated. I don't like the way I look. Or they'll come, they'll come to you with these, these questions. But I have a lot of male clients who just take it for granted lately. Bloating, not a big deal. It's like everyone gets it right, you know, so they normalize the symptoms. But what I want to say is that is not normal having that much bloating, or it's showing you it's a, it's a symptom or a sign that something is off. And it could be connected to your microbiome. It could be connected to the fact that you don't have enough players to do the work that they were supposed to do in the first place. That is digesting that bean soup. That is that digesting that broccoli that you had for lunch. And I do have a lot of clients who say, I used to eat all of this before what happened? I haven't changed my diet, but now anything that I eat, I'm bloated. But this system is constantly changing. The rules of the game are changing all the time. You know, we are, we're in different stages of life. So something that you can get away with when you're younger, when you have a lot of bacteria helping you and you know, you have age on your side. And then as you get older, you don't have the same hormones, your estrogen tanks, your progesterone, shaky, your cortisol increases because of work stress, children, all of that just that is enough to cause this microbial shift. So, in fact, by the time we end up in like a post menopausal stage, there are certain studies showing that a female microbiome could end up looking like your partners or like a husband's. Microbiome changes so much because we don't have the same microbial picture. It is changing and responding to, to hormones. I think one of the things that I, I always try to tell my clients is it's not your fault. It's not about willpower. But it certainly has something to do with the microbes. It has something to do with hormonal shifts, brain chemistry. And then if we can take care of these things, then reframing the mindset becomes a little bit easier, you know, because you are working with your body chemistry rather than against it. That's why you really just can't keep doing restrictive diet after restrictive diet after restrictive Diet and hope for a miracle and say, oh my gosh, I still haven't lost the weight. Or I lost the weight and I regained it. We hear this all the time, right? You know, because they go on such restrictive diets. But when you go on restrictive diets, what happens? Your microbes are starving. You're not, when you're on a restrictive diet, you're not thinking, did I take in enough polyphenols today? Did I have enough fiber today? No, you're just saying, oh, this is my little meal. 500 calories. You know, you will not believe. And you probably have had this experience too where women come in and say, I just eat 500 calories. How is this even possible? Not to lose weight? So the metabolism is tanking. So I think it's complex. But if we were to simplify it, I would say really eating abundance of a variety of foods so your, your gut is happy is a good thing. And of course, if you've been on restrictive diets for a very, very long time, you cannot start with 30 to 40 grams of food fiber on day one.

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Yeah, but in time, I think that's what I see. I think it is possible. Yeah.

I remember listening to an episode with Mark Hyman, Dr. Mark Hyman, and he was talking about how, you know, a lot of people, what they complain about with like cruciferous vegetables is the bloating and the gas that happens. And he was saying if that's happening, you know, if you eat broccoli or you eat cabbage or Brussels sprouts or, or whatever and you have a lot of bloating that results. He's like, it's a sign that your gut microbiome is imbalanced and you need to look into that first because you should be able to eat those foods without problems. And if you're having problems, it's something to do with your gut microbiome. And it's true. If somebody's been on a very restrictive diet or they haven't been including much in the way of plants in their diet, then you do. You haven't necessarily built yet the microbial community to support digestion of all of those foods. And you need to do that over time. And so it's like, yeah, just suddenly cramming yourself full 40 grams of fiber is going to be pretty uncomfortable because your body has to be able to digest that. And so much of that digestion comes from the microbiome. And it's like you haven't been feeding those microbes for a long time. So they may be very few in number or even non existent. And suddenly you're giving enough food to feed an army of them. Well, they don't have an army, so they can't digest it. So you feel pretty like, off balance.

It's true. And I think the listeners, I think a good definition of a healthy microbiome is probably a good starting point. And sometimes we're in this zone where we are kind of thinking about other things, but a basic understanding of the microbiome is really important. I don't think we really know what a healthy microbiome is yet, but we do know that there's something called a resilient microbiome. And a resilient microbiome is a microbiome that can bounce back after an illness, after a trip to Mexico or Delhi, able to handle antibiotics without really having six months of ramifications of the antibiotics. These are signs that your microbiome is there helping you deal with it. And what we know is that a resilient microbiome, there's a couple of characteristics that we can define, how we can define a resilient microbiome. Largely, there's space, species richness. You have different kinds of bacteria going to bad for you. And this is important because these bacteria do different functions for us. Like I said earlier, they can produce these healthy compounds called short chain fatty acids. They can produce vitamins like B and K for us. They can produce or metabolize many neurotransmitters like serotonin, gaba. They were really involved in the gut brain access through the vagus nerve. And so that's important. So because you're doing so many different functions for us, it's very important that we have many players doing this. So the reason that is important is, let's say you do go to Mexico and you end up with diarrhea and you take antibiotics and a bunch of them die off. But then there are other species who come in and say, that's okay, I, I got your back. I will do this for you. I will. I will take over the functions that you were doing for Eleni. And then what happens? That's functional redundancy, right? That's what we want. Because if we are just focused on just the few guys who are helping us out and they die, we are in trouble. So having that species richness is really important. And we also want species evenness. We don't want too many of one thing. You know, really think of your garden as your analogy. And you don't want, like, right now I have, like, I would say about 50 tomato plants taking over Because I've just been so busy with the book. And then the others are, it's just crowding out all the other things in the garden and it's not growing as, as well as I would have expected. And that's what's happening within us too. If you have too much of you, let's say you're taking a certain probiotic and you're growing a certain thing, it could be at the peril of other, other bacterial species. So we want evenness, we want richness, we want diversity. And when all of that is thriving and then you got microbiome is largely resilient. And that's pretty much what we know about it for for now. And we don't know, oh, is this is a bad bacteria? This is a good bacteria. We know that some can take on the role of a pathogenic bacteria like too much of Candida or too much of Klebselia or things like that, Streptococcus or E. Coli. These could be pathogenic and. But there's also good bacteria like Lactobacilli bifido. All well studied strains of bacteria become very important. And this is a question I get Eleni a lot is like, what probiotics should I buy? You know, I mean, it's like. So it all boils down to this really understanding it's not just the bacteria, it's the strain that matters. So just looking for, let's say yogurt that says contains probiotic cultures not telling you anything. It is not telling you anything at all. So I would say put it back on the shelf. It's not really helping you in any way, but rather look for yogurt that has a particular strain that's mentioned, says contains BB lactose 12 or contains lactobacillus reuteri or something like that. Then you know that, oh, this is what this yogurt or drink is really rich in. Then you can do your research and say, do I need BB lactose 12? What is studied for? So then we find out that it's really good for constipation. Is that a good fit for me? You could have more, you know, once you have that basic understanding, then you can really search for the right strains for your health conditions. So you can make it a little bit more targeted.

Absolutely. And there's, I'm sure, hundreds of species of bacteria we just haven't discovered yet and aren't aware of yet. Because everybody is so diverse in their individual populations, are so diverse. Do you happen to know about how many bacteria we do know of that inhabit the gut microbiome currently?

Well, that's a very interesting question and it's a very sad one too because we're losing a lot of species. And that's why I feel like it's our collective responsibility to save this heirloom for future generations, for our children, for our grandchildren. Like at the modern Hadza tribe, they probably have about 1500 species or more. They say that a healthy US, healthy American has about 350 to 400 species. Just that is really, really sad. In my own practice, I haven't seen anything more than 150.

Wow. And how do you test for that microbial diversity?

Yeah, we are in a better place today for testing. You know, there was a time when all we had was that PCR technology and we couldn't really, you know, look at the big picture, look at all of the strains. But now we have whole genome sequencing, shotgun sequencing. We can really look at a person's feces sample and find out and kind of say with certainty that it is a good representation of what's happening in the distal colonial, the live and the dead microbes. So if the, if the microbiome test is showing a certain amount of diversity, saying this is a functionality at a colon level, I mean there's, you could definitely take that as a good starting point. More than anything, it builds curiosity. I think that's what a test does at this point. I want to know what my species richness is, evennesses, you know, I want to know what kind of functions is doing, is it doing a good job? How can I make it better? Can. Is. Is my protein fermentation where it's supposed to be, you just become a little bit more curious and from there and. But I wouldn't take, let's say for example, it's not diagnostic by any, any means yet, but if it does, say there's, there's a presence of an E. Coli or I think you would need to go back to the doctor and get more studies done, let's say giardia or you know, candida, then go do specific tests for that, that kind of deeper dive into pathogenic bacteria. But the test that for example, what I use is mainly to educate my clients about the diversity in their gut and what can we do as next steps. Because whatever you measure, you are going to improve just like that scale we stand on every single day. And it's telling us something, right? It's telling us our bmi, it's telling us our, you know, weight, you know, and we can do take actions based on that. That's pretty much where we are with technology. But I think we are in a very interesting space. Space. You know, we're learning so much and the technology is getting better and better and better.

And I, I just think about that. You know, you talked about the modern Hotza tribe, 1500 microbial species, and then like, look at what's on the label of most probiotics, right? It could be nine or 10, sometimes 15, but usually right around 10 different species. It's like, I wouldn't want to touch a probiotic if I was a member of the Hadza tribe, because it's like, I've got 1500 of these guys in here all in balance. What's it gonna do if I start like pumping my body full of these nine? You know, I think that's like the interesting balance with probiotics. And have you found through your practice that species richness and diversity can increase solely through dietary changes and food? Do people need to add in the probiotics? What about like fermented foods? Or is it all simply adding in more of this fiber to your diet?

Again, yes, I think food is the biggest needle mover we have when it comes to seeing changes in microbial diversity. One of the studies that I always tell on these podcasts is one that happened in Pittsburgh, you know, where women, African American women swapped their diets with women in rural South Africa. You know, they were eating more of the roughage and tubers and things like that. And of course, the Pittsburgh population were on a sad standard American diet. They swapped their diets for one week and they immediately saw the composition of the microbial composition changing, trending towards the. The Pittsburgh trending towards a more anti inflammatory and, and the South African more pro inflammatory response to diet. So 100%. I believe that fruit can be medicine or it can be a slow poison to your microbes. And will a supplement help? Really depends. Because even by the nature of definition of a probiotic, it is something that confers some kind of benefit to the host. So we have to kind of take that into consideration. Does your probiotic match all of the criteria, you know, for being a probiotic? Is it a live bacteria? Is it, Is it a live microbe? Is it. Does it have a certain cfu? Does it, how is it stored? Is it something that you can take as a food versus as a pill? There are so many things to be thinking about in terms of a probiotic, and sometimes do they attach to your intestinal lining? Do they, Are they They're largely transient. You know, you take, you're spending a lot on probiotics, but you have to know that either they take to your host, to your composition, or they may leave. Right. And they may be there until you're taking it. So they're very transitory. So is that as you're transitory, are they conferring some kind of benefit to you as a host? These are things that we need to be really paying attention to. But what I see is that a lot of people take probiotics, but they're not really observing their body for these changes. Many people will say, yeah, I'm taking it. I don't know if it's really doing any good. That's the problem with supplements. If you take a supplement and you're very cognizant about, I'm going to take this for the next month and I'm going to largely see how this works. For me, that's a better way to take a supplement rather than take it and hope for the best. In that case, I would say take more prebiotic fibers. Take fibers that are high in fructooligosaccharides, you know, gauze and inulin, and all of these wonderful things that have been studied to grow your microbial diversity. You know that you take some of these things, your bifidobacterium will grow, for example, galacto oligosaccharides, you know, like on legumes and things like that can really increase your bifidobacterium. And so we really have to go after strains and bacteria that have been studied for many, many years. And that's your Lactobacilli bifido, you know, some prevotella and really cut down on proteobacteria and all the gram negative bacteria that can cause that leaky gut or intestinal barrier problems, you know, because of the endotoxins they produce. Say a lot of the gram negative bacteria have an outer lane layer called LPS or lipopolysaccharides. And these when they just, you know, when you have a leaky gut, they go into your bloodstream immediately. You have that immune response to it and your inflammation increases. And that can cause a lot of these things like bloating and digestive issues, brain fog, you name it. So imbalance in the gut happens when there's imbalance in the microbial composition as well?

Absolutely. For somebody who's like, okay, I want to implement, you know, more fiber into my diet, what does that, 30 grams ish. 30 to 40 grams of fiber. What does that look like in terms of what foods are they? What amounts are they? Is it like, yeah, I'm eating two cups of broccoli, Brussels sprouts, spinach. You know, like, how does somebody kind of quantify that?

You know, I personally don't look at my diet that way. I just look for diversity, and I think the fiber takes care of itself. If. If I just leave a listener with the rule that implement a diet, pick the protein that you want, be it animal or plant. You know, it's your choice. Any lean protein is fine. You know, we have no studies that say that lean animal protein is bad for you or anything like that. So if you feel good on animal protein, eat that protein. So the rest of the plate should reflect that rainbow, that diversity of plant fiber. And so when you're eating a diet that is rich in all of this, naturally, it equates to. To a better microbial population because it's feeding the prebiotic fibers of feeding your microbes. So I would say, like, let's say, for example, a breakfast of oats, oat bran that's really high in beta glucans, you know, with some chia seeds and nuts and blueberries and things like that could be a good starting point. If oats are not. I mean, I have a lot of clients that come and say, I can't do oats. I can't do this. I can't. You know, so many things that they are so sensitive to. Then do a smoothie. I mean, smoothies have gotten. They've been kind of coupled with juices, and they've gotten a bad name. I just want to say smoothies are really great, especially if your oral tolerance is really low. And remember your secretary, IGA is really produced in your mouth, a big part of it, by chewing and by eating a variety of different foods, and it's sending signals. It's like your gatekeeper, you know, just preventing pathogens. So if you're not able to chew or eat a lot of the foods because you've lost some of that, a smoothie is a perfect way to increase that. The smoothie does not have to have sugar. It doesn't have to have any of that. So I actually have a format that I give my clients. I call it a new smoothie, you know, but it's a play on my name. I didn't start it, My clients did. And it's basically just having like a good. Like a pomegranate juice. Pomegranate is very high in polyphenols Increasing pomegranate is a good idea. You know, adding something like a plant based milk or something like that as a liquid, increasing some, add some protein of your choice, some rich fibers, flax, chia hemp, all of that is great. Good. Add ins superfoods like camu, camu or moringa. And this. If it sounds daunting, you can just make a mix of all of this and add it every day and try it as an experiment for one week. Try your smoothie for one week to see how if you start your day with a healthy smoothie, it's almost like jump starting your day. And even if you are not in control of the rest of the day, at least you've had that smoothie that's nourishing you and adding some like fistfuls of greens into it, mint, cilantro, things like that, and berries, a tiny piece of banana if you can tolerate it. And if your sugar doesn't spike, you have a beautiful, delightful smoothie. And it's going to keep you satiated, it's going to keep you full, your brain is going to be happy, your gut is going to be happy.

I love it. What are your thoughts on fermented foods? Kimchi, sauerkraut, yogurts, things like that?

I think again, fermented foods are fantastic. You know, the recent study from Stanford compared fiber and fermented foods and they noticed that within a week, people who added fermented foods, they saw a difference in their microbial composition. So I do believe fermented foods are great, you know, kimchi, sauerkraut. But it is a bit of a learning curve, you know, for a lot of people, like, and even for their palate. And when I say kimchi, most people will wrinkle your nose or like, I don't want to try it, you know, so. And again, it depends on who's asking the question, right? If you have SIBO or ibs, I wouldn't add fermented foods right away. You're fermenting enough to add to it, so you want to go really slow. So again, go back to your own wisdom about your body. Where am I in this? Is my digestion pretty solid right now? You know, I feel like I have good bowel movements, I've good transit time, meaning. And everyone should do a transit test. It's easy, cheap, Just add some red or black quinoa or sesame seed seeds, corn, and just watch how long it takes for you to see it in your poop.

Beets are a good one too. They're Pretty obvious.

Yeah, beets are. But sometimes beats can be a little tricky, you know, I mean, they just kind of. I feel like sometimes people are not able to see, you know, and also to see how long it lasts in the pool. You know, how long does it. Does it keep. That's also an important thing. I've had clients is after about a week, they say, I don't know where it went, but I haven't seen it. And they give up. But you have to keep looking for it. And maybe your gut transit time is so slow, it's going to take much longer. I think that's a good starting point for people to understand their own gut transit time. Because constipation is so misunderstood in this country. A lot of people think that, oh, I'm just going every other day, and they feel like they're not constipated or I'm not straining or, you know, I'm. I'm not bleeding and, you know, things like that. But a simple definition is if you're eating three times, you should be pooping three times. You should have good. On a Bristol scale, like a type three to five, you know, if you're eating a lot of fiber, it could even be a five. You know, that's. That's fine. I know I have clients who have been so stressed coming to me. Mine is not a perfect four. I think something is off. I just want to calm down. It's not a big deal. So. So that. That's important. Maybe starting there and then asking yourself, do I have any bloating? Do I have any flatulence? Is my. Is my. When I'm passing gas, is it smelly? All of that could be pointing to something. Do I have abdominal pains? You know, do I have diverticulitis or IBS symptoms? Sibo, you know, a lot of people just take herbal antibiotics and keep their fingers crossed. Sibo is very complicated, and you just have to kind of really, you know, when there's a flare up, take care of it. But after that, really start feeding and getting off that low fodmap diet. I think that's causing a lot of problems for a lot of people because they still stay on that low fodmap diet for so long that it has its value and it really helps. But eventually you need to be eating everything.

Yeah, I know we're pressing up against our time here, but before we close out, I kind of want to touch on some of the other lifestyle factors that can influence our gut health because, you know, we. We especially me As a nutritionist, it's like, of course I want to talk about diet, but there's so many things, you know, like you said, the microbiome and the environment change maybe from day to day, depending on how stressed out you are or how much you've slept or if you got in a fight with your spouse or if your boss yelled at you. So can we talk about, like, some of those factors and how they might influence the gut microbiome?

Yes, definitely. I think number one is sleep for me. You know, I feel like sleep is certainly getting its due these days. People are more invested in their sleep and thanks to all of these devices like the aura ring and, you know, this is the conversation I have with my husband every single morning. Annie, what's your score? What's my score? I don't know how healthy that is, but yeah. And even one night of poor sleep can decrease your microbial diversity. Studies are showing us that we have a circadian rhythm and we need to be respectful of our circadian rhythm having erected erratic sleep patterns. You know, we've seen that in studies done on shift workers like, you know, and flight attendants, people like, who have erratic timings and they've seen what happens to your microbiome because the microbes have their own circadian rhythm that closely mimics ours. And if we're eating late at night or not sleeping well, it affects them as well. So that's one reason. And if you're on a weight loss diet or, or some kind of a diet and you have erratic sleep, beware of it, because that could be undoing everything you're doing as far as in your weight loss journey. Because even one night of poor sleep, the next day your brain is searching for all these dopamine triggering foods. And then that's not broccoli for sure. You know, it's all the fun foods that are hyper palatable and your brain's searching for it and you can eat up to 500 calories more if you're not careful, you know, from just that, sleep. So sleep is super important. Stress is another big factor, you know, really kind of understanding your own stress. We all are under stress all the time. You know, it's. That's why I feel like it's really doesn't make sense to compare our diets or, or, or be with, you know, like ancestral groups. We have an a beast of, you know, the stress response. You know, we don't have that. Fighting the tiger, chasing off the tiger. One response. It's all the time. And it's a loop. And we need to figure out how do we deal with that, you know, and there's not one way to do it. People might say breath work or yoga nidra, or just walking outside or take. Just talking to your dog, petting your dog, or, you know, just. Everyone has different responses to these biohacks as you, if you can call them that, you know, so that's important. I think stress, how you handle stress is really important. And I think the number one thing I would say is exercise. Huge difference between people who exercise and who don't. They've studied microbial patterns of athletes versus couch potatoes. Huge difference. And. And that exercise can be so, so individualized. You know, I mean, I don't like to run. I used to love to run. I don't anymore. I just walk. I carry my weights or I do rucking, and I walk up the hill and I love it. It's just me and my thoughts and just dealing with the hills here in La Jolla, and I'm happy with that. And then I do strength training, and that's really important, especially when you hit perimenopause or men, too. Sarcopenia is a real thing. Losing muscle is ugly. You know, it affects our bone health. It affects so many aspects of aging that we do need to take care of our muscle mass. So I think. And. And the microbiome as well, so.

Absolutely. Well, I wish we could get more into depth in that because I feel like there's another conversation around why does stress. Stress influence our microbiome? And why does sleep influence our microbiome? And why does exercise influence our microbiome? Right. Like, those are bigger questions, but maybe I'll have you.

And the protein. How much protein? Yeah.

Yes, exactly. Right. And it's such a varied question again in today's, like, social media immersion. It's all over the map what people recommend, how much. So, yeah, I would love to have you on again in the future and dive into some of those topics.

But.

But before we sign off, how do people learn more from you? Do you have social media channels? I think you said you have a podcast. What's your website? How do people get in touch with you and learn more from you?

Well, My website is 9Arms of Wellness.com and that's also my philosophy. And my Instagram is 9Arms of Wellness as well.

Is that spelled out 9 or the number 9?

The number 9. Okay. And my podcast that I co host is Bad Medicine. We really explore what bad medicine is, you know, with our. With our guests and my book is out for release pretty soon and it's called Flourish from From Within. It's all about the microbiome. I've tried to really make the science easy to understand. I've kind of proposed a diet to feed the microbiome and I say really feed the microbiome, not you. You know, indirectly feeding you. And then of course, some recipes to support it.

Lovely. Well, Anu, it's been wonderful having you on today. I think you're a wealth of knowledge and information and I definitely look forward to continuing that conversation in the future. But thank you so much for your time today.

Thank you, Eleni. It's a pleasure.

Yeah, of course. Well, to our listeners, I hope this conversation proved helpful for you and be sure to send any questions that you have. And thank you so much for listening and Go be renegades.

Renegades. Yeah.

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Renegade Nutrition Podcast. Keep trusting your body, questioning the noise and walking the renegade path. Remember, I'm not your doctor and this podcast isn't medical advice. Always chat with a trusted health professional before making changes to your wellness routine. Stay curious, stay bold and go be renegades.

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