Gut Health 101

Hey, guys. Cribbin Govender from the Gut Health Gurus podcast. I have my colleague here today with me, James Shadrach, who is a. Has a psychology background. So he's very much coming from the angle of the mind. And me, Cribbon, being a food scientist, all things food and gut. So that's where I'm at. And so, James, today I thought what we'd do is we have a lot of questions that come through with nourishment, organics with allele, microbiome on gut health. Why is it so important? And being scientists, sometimes we can, I guess, have that knowledge and understanding in our own heads, but then when it comes to actually breaking it down and simplifying it, for the average Joe Bloggs, who doesn't have a scientific background, that can be a challenge sometimes. So what I really want to do today, my whole essence of today, is to really deconstruct and break down gut health. So gut health, 101, for want of a better word. So what do you think about that, James?

Look, I think that's awesome. I think there's so much science and news and media coming out about gut health. And, you know, the question that comes to mind for me is like, what do you mean when you say gut health? What is this thing, the microbiome? And if anything, how do I stay healthy? What should I be doing differently to maintain my health now that I know gut health is an important thing? A lot of questions.

There's a lot of questions, and, you know, the public has a lot of questions. And I. I think a good place to start is to look at the numbers. You know, we have a relatively small population in Australia, but 10 million of us, from the numbers that I've looked at, have digestive issues. Well, that's. That's huge. It's like almost half our population. Like, it's. It's a staggering number to think that, you know, one in two people have some form of digestive issue. So it could be, are they struggling from bloating? Are they. Do they have IBS or Crohn's abdominal discomfort? So, I mean, eating is such a fundamental part of being human, but it's scary to think that people actually become scared of eating for the repercussions of going to the toilet and experiencing that discomfort, whether it be diarrhea or just all the effects of having a dysfunctional gut. So that's in a nutshell. I think that's where we're struggling. It's really an issue. So what I wanted to do today is to talk about, I guess, the microbiome. What are the potential triggers that are leading to us having this dysfunctional gut and just keeping it very simple.

Cool. I love it. I've got a bunch of questions. Is someone coming, you know, newer into the whole gut health field? So I think, you know, a question for me is what are the symptoms of bad gut health? Or if someone's gut is not healthy, what kind of things are they experiencing?

Well, firstly, it's a clear the uneasiness when it comes to how you're feeling down in that gut area. So that's pretty obvious. Like if you're bloated or you're burping, it's a very sensitive area. So you can really feel if something's going wrong. Then there could be other things like experiencing constipation. So not actually going to the toilet once or two times per day, but, you know, going to the toilet once a week, which I've seen in some cases. So that's a clear sign that fundamentally there's something going wrong down there. So these are the really extreme things. But then simple things like you eat certain types of foods and you experience discomfort and it could also be a real struggle with shifting weight. That's another issue.

Yeah. Okay. I mean, at least for myself, I definitely feel when I eat certain foods afterwards, sometimes I feel horrible. You know, whether that is like a lot of bloating and my stomach just feels tight and I feel heavy.

Yes.

And then sometimes I just want to go to sleep right after I've eaten a meal. I just feel horrible, lethargic. And what I'm starting to understand is maybe that's not how I should be feeling and maybe there's something off, maybe there's something wrong with my gut health and.

Absolutely. And it's amazing that you have that level of self awareness to say, well, there something fundamentally going wrong here and I need to address it. Unfortunately for most people with these type of digestive health issues, it becomes a baseline and it's almost. There's an assumption from the individual that this is normal. So when people really start to fix up these digestive issues and gut health issues, they then experience a level of well being that they've never actually experienced before. And that shifts their baseline to closer to what they should be feeling at an optimal level. I think you touched on some interesting points there. I think you were speaking about energy levels, which is definitely a big issue when it comes to digestive health because you think about the digestive process, it's a process where you are actually extracting energy from food, but the process in itself is expending a lot of energy as well. So approximately about 60% of the total energy is expended to extract nutrients from your food in the digestive process. So if the digestive process is not efficient, you're going to be feeling pretty tired. And then there's the whole connection between the gut and the brain and all the emotional and mental health issues that eventuate as well.

Yeah, right. I mean, just, I mean, from my perspective, you know, I've got a lot of work to do. I'm very busy. And then if I eat and I feel horrible, lethargic and want to go to sleep afterwards, it's just horribly inefficient. It sucks. But for a long time I just thought that was just normal. And now what I'm starting to understand is there could be something wrong with my gut health or maybe what I'm eating.

Yes, absolutely. And the perfect analogy is to think about the, you know, the. If you're in America, the Thanksgiving feast, or here in Australia, Christmas lunch, you know that feeling, I think we all know it pretty well when you are having this huge meal and then it's almost the siesta, the nap required to actually digest the food afterwards. And you're experiencing in that moment this huge energy drain for you to actually break down that food into something that the body can actually utilize.

Yeah, totally. So, I mean, for example, if I say I go to a cafe and I buy like a, I don't know, a chicken schnitzel sandwich or something like that, it's one of those sandwiches. Sitting in the cafe, it looks pretty healthy. I don't feel too great after I eat it. You know, mentally, I feel kind of like down. I feel kind of foggy. I can't really focus after I eat something like that. I'm starting to notice this happens quite often. So what's going on there? Is it the food? Is my gut not processing it properly? Why do I feel bad after eating something like that, which looks like it should be healthy?

Yeah, well, what, what's, what's happening there is that the, the body or the gut in, in some essence is not getting the right balance of nutrients and, and the right combination of the, the macronutrients being carbohydrates, fats and proteins. So what you'll typically find is if you have a very concentrated carbohydrate, something like bread, and then you combine that with a very concentrated protein, something like meat the digestive process is somewhat impaired because to digest the food, the body has to create the right level of enzymes and things to digest starch and carbohydrates. So hence I find if I. The way you combine these foods is very, very important. Hence that's why something like a paleo style of eating doesn't typically result in, or even ketogenic doesn't typically result in you feeling that lethargic feeling. Because if you think about paleo or ketogenic, it'll normally be a piece of meat and some salad. And ideally what we want you to do is put some fermented vegetables on the side as well, just to, to, to boost everything else that's happening on that plate, especially, you know, the prebiotic fibers and the good gut bacteria that you're going to be incorporating as well. So the food combining part, for me, for my experience of how I personally feel in some of the literature that I've looked at, that seems to be the main reason why people experience this feeling of yuckiness or lack of energy. And then the other part of it is if you're eating a lot of processed type foods, this in itself is also very impairing on the digestive process as well. So it's, it's. You're not digesting your food as efficiently as if you're eating a lot cleaner because there's all these other interactions going on between the additives in the body as well.

Yeah, okay, I get you. So combination of food is a bit off and there are additives and preservatives in the food I'm eating, which kind of. It's not easy for the body to process and digest, which might be what's leading me to feel not that very. Not great after I eat that type of stuff.

Yes, absolutely. James. You know, things like now it's becoming very clear that certain types of additives can really damage the bacteria in your gut. So then you're resulting in a situation where you have dysbiosis. So the term dysbiosis in layman's terms just means that you've got the wrong balance of bacteria in the gut.

Right. So you've got some good bacteria, some bad bacteria. And if there's too much bad and not enough good, that's dysbiosis.

Yes, in a simple way, that is just the balance of gut bacteria. In essence, there isn't really a clear cut good and bad bacteria. We just know that some bacteria in certain conditions can create diseases and illness. Something like a helicopter helicobacter pylori, which is a type of bacteria that's naturally there, but if the gut is in balance, and then on some other factors as well, could result in this Helicobacteria becoming pathogenic, which means having the ability to cause disease.

Wow. Yeah, wow. It's, it's really fascinating seeing what kinds of bacteria can lead to these types of problems. But I'm understanding that the bacteria in your gut plays an important role in health and the whole microbiome as well, which I feel like is a big topic. I don't completely understand what I need to know to stay healthy, but I understand there's bacteria in my gut, but what's going on there, what do I need to be aware of?

Yep. So think about. The gut is like a rainforest. So within that rainforest environment, there's all these different types of animals. And so these different type of animals perform different functions. Some of these animals will help you digest food, they will help you extract nutrients from the food. Others will be part of your immune system. Others will impact mood. So they're all doing slightly different things. So what we want to do is to have as many of these different types of animals as possible, because what scientists agree on is that the diversity of these different animals in the gut is the most important thing for holistic health. And to further your question, can you clarify that question again?

Yeah. So what do I need to know about in terms of gut bacteria to stay healthy?

Yep. So all you need to know is that it's important to have diversity.

Diversity.

Diversity. Diversity is the most important thing. And the way that we foster diversity is to incorporate much more plant foods than we're typically used to in our modern society. So we're talking around 30 to 40 different types of plant foods because all those different plant foods have different types of fibers, and these fibers will feed different bacteria, different animals. So what we're going to do is have diversity of vegetable foods, which will result in diversity in gut bacterial types. The main thing, and, you know, sometimes you feel like this is a hard task, but when I mean diversity of foods, it's like if you're having a certain type of lettuce. So rather than having the same type of lettuce all the time, mix up the varieties because they're all slightly different. Cross lettuce will be different to iceberg lettuce versus other types. It's the same thing. You can mix up the types of apples that you're having, and that counts as being different because the fiber structures are different and, and these Fibers will end up in the gut. The body can't digest certain types of fibers, so it'll actually end up in the colon. So the large intestine and provide a food source, a fermentable food source for different types of gut bacteria. So we know fiber is the key to actually increasing diversity.

Wow. Okay.

So that's one part of it.

Okay. So diversity is really important, and I need a diverse range of gut bacteria to stay healthy. And the best way to do that is through plant foods. And you're saying 30 to 40 different plant foods per week, right?

Yes, and different colors. The other thing is that with different fruits and different vegetables, the colors matter because turns out that the coloring types of substances in the vegetables and the fruit are called polyphenols. So they're known as antioxidants. So green tea is a classic one. They're green tea antioxidant. But these polyphenols, by and large, can't be digested by you. They're actually digested by the gut bacteria. So this is another form of food. So what you're looking for is a variety of vegetable types, but also variety of colors in your fruits and vegetables as well.

Yeah. Okay. So essentially it's just mixing everything up, like different colors of fruits and veggies and lots of them.

Yes, exactly. It's just breaking out the monotonous cycle of eating the same things over and over and just being adventurous with the types of fruits and vegetables that you're trying.

Yeah.

And perhaps you go to the market and you try something that you've never tried before.

Totally. I thought it was really interesting a couple of months ago when you tested my gut bacteria, and I had been eating essentially the same thing over and over and over again. Figured out how to meal prep and a pretty nutritious meal, and I just ate that on repeat. And I thought I'd be really healthy, especially compared to my girlfriend who you also tested, and she eats more variety. But it turned out that her gut test performed way better than mine.

Yes.

And I was like, what? You know, I've been. I've been eating healthy. I've been eating healthy over and over and over again. But now what you're saying is if I have a very limited and strict diet like that, I'm not getting any of that diversity and my gut bacteria is going to miss out.

Yes, absolutely. Because it almost like you're almost starving the other types out by continuously feeding certain types. So if you have the same food, the ones that like it will continue to Eat it at the detriment of all the other ones that I'm missing out.

Yeah. Okay. So if I just eat chicken and rice all the time, I'm only feeding gut bacteria that likes chicken and rice.

That's it. Exactly right. In a simplistic sense.

Gotta keep it simple for me. Okay, cool. So I've heard about fermented foods and I've heard about things like kombucha and probiotics, and I understand they help, but I don't quite understand how they help. How do they fit into this diversity idea in the gut bacteria?

Yep. So if you look at the fermented foods, things like kefir or like fermented vegetables, they're very probiotic rich. There's lots of good types of bacteria in them, primarily lactobacilli. So this is. There's two types of peacekeeping bacteria that we have that are very well researched. You got lactobacilli and bifida bacteria. So lactobacilli, a very good source of it is your fermented vegetables. And kefir. Kombucha has one type of probiotic. It's not very well researched, but we think that there could be a type called saccharomyces boadi in there. So. But it does have a lot of beneficial organic acids, like acetic acid, which is the same thing you find insider vinegar and gluconic acid. And those have some good benefits for the body.

Yeah. Okay, so probiotics and the fermented foods contain beneficial bacteria. Yes. If I consume these foods, they'll help balance that, you know, good bad gut bacteria. Is that. Is that how it works?

That's pretty much in a nutshell. How works. I mean, what you're doing is you're incorporating these good bacteria in. And the definition of a probiotic by the World Health Organization is an organism that can elicit a beneficial effect on the body. Paraphrasing. So it doesn't necessarily have to colonize, but in the process of consumption, as it passes through the gut, it's eliciting benefit. It could be that it's out competing some detrimental types of bacteria. So it's essentially just shifting. It's just adding more animals into that rainforest to then compete with potentially detrimental types of bacteria.

Yeah. Okay, that's starting to make sense. So say if, you know, for the next couple of weeks I have, you know, a kefir, a milk kefir smoothie. Every time I consume that, I'm introducing good beneficial bacteria and they'll help balance everything out.

Absolutely.

And maybe those bacteria that I introduce won't stay in my gut, but if I'm having it, you know, every day or each week, I'm constantly introducing beneficial bacteria and that will help balance everything out of my gut. Is that how it works?

Yes, absolutely. So that's part of it, but just having that competition environment happening. But then it's also that these, these types of bacteria can produce what we call metabolites. So a simple example is that these probiotics are actually producing some other types of chemicals that are then going to elicit a beneficial effect on the body. So the organisms themselves and the byproducts that the organisms produce. A classic example that scientists talk about is butyrate. And butyrate is actually a byproduct of bacterial fermentation in the gut. And they're essentially taking fibers and converting it into an acid, a short chain fatty acid called butyrate. And it turns out that this butyrate chemical is actually a food source for bacteria, but also a food source for the actual gut cells. So they're an energy source for the gut cells.

Wow. Okay, so butyrate, would that be contained in something like kimchi or sauerkraut?

Butyrate is actually. It might be present in certain types of dairy type ferments and butter and things like that, but most of it's actually going to be produced by the bacteria in the gut inside.

Okay.

So they're going to take all those beautiful vegetables and colorful vegetables and diversity that you're consuming and then convert it into the. In the gut, into butyrate.

Yeah. Okay, so, so by eating all the vegetables and the diverse range of them, I'm giving the gut bacteria fuel to create these beneficial substances for my body, more energy to make me healthier. Is that.

That's exactly right, James. That's spot on. So think of the bacteria as like almost like little factories in the gut. And so what they're doing is they're taking these fibers, and these fibers you'll typically hear they call prebiotics. And so these fibers are then going to be converted into beneficial substances like butyrate, acetate, propionate. They're all short chain fatty acids that are all good for the body.

Okay. I'm really starting to get a better picture of this. So I wonder about this situation. So when I was younger, my parents would constantly send me the doctor for really anything little cold they would think of virus or whatever, and I would constantly get antibiotics. And I've heard that antibiotics can be really detrimental to Gut health. So I was having antibiotics, you know, multiple times throughout the year. I would go through the whole course of them. I would also eat a really restricted diet because I was a really picky eater when I was younger. So I wonder in terms of, you know, the balance of good and bad gut bacteria and what we've just talked about. I didn't feel very good at that point in my life. And I wonder what was happening in terms of gut health. Antibiotics all the time, narrow range of food.

Yeah, but that's an excellent point because antibiotics, you think about an antibiotic like a nuclear bomb to the gut. Wow. So studies have shown that a course, a five day course of antibiotics can destroy the gut bacteria and wipe out almost a third. And some of these types of bacteria you might not never ever be able to get back.

Wow.

And don't get me wrong, antibiotics are very, very, very important. They've, they've allowed us as a modern civilization to, to prosper and, and move forward and conquer a lot of disease. The issue is firstly, indiscriminate use of antibiotics and using it in situations where it's not really going to be beneficial. Like if you've got a cold and flu that's a viral infection, an antibiotic is not going to be useful in that sense. But I think we've got so used to just popping pills to feel better, but we're doing a lot of collateral damage to, to the gut. But the bigger issue with antibiotic use is more going to be through the food supply. It's very prevalent in meats and farm fish where there's low levels of antibiotics added to them to, to really to, for, for the gain of the, these companies involved because they get more mass. But the flow on effect is all the damage that this is going to be doing to people's gut microbiomes.

Yeah. Wow.

And you weren't feeling that great because at that time of your life, if you have a restrictive diet, obviously you're not encouraging diversity and then you're also nuclear bombing your gut with antibiotics very, very often. So what typically happens with excessive antibiotic use is that you, you'll kill off a lot of your gut flora. But the ones that come back are typically the ones that are not the good ones. They're the very robust ones like Clostridium, who can withstand this bombing almost like cockroaches, you know, like after a nuclear, nuclear war. So it's a similar situation.

Yeah. Okay. So for myself and people in this similar situation who taken maybe too much antibiotics is There anything we should look out for? Is there a particular effect that will have on the gut or what's kind of the result of nuclear bombing? Gut microbiome, yeah.

Typically the result of the nuclear bombing is dysbiosis. So what's going to happen is that that the types and the balance is going to be off. So a lot of people experience things like IBS and in Crohn's disease and whatnot, because that balance of bacteria is not at its optimum level, meaning that you've got a lot more these negative type bacteria in there. So what we want to do is rebalance it and bring it back into balance. And, you know, the science is still very, very young when it comes to what's, what's the right balance. And I don't think there is a one size fits all. I think everybody's going to be a little bit different depending on their life circumstances. Whether they've gone through chemotherapy, whether they've abused antibiotics for a large part of their life, the way they were born with, whether it was a cesarean birth or a natural birth, that's going to impact that gut signature. So we've got to work within that, those limitations, and then use things like prebiotics, fermented foods, probiotics, and most importantly, having the right diet and lifestyle choices to bring balance back.

Yeah, it sounds like a really integrated approach to it all. I mean, I feel so much better than I did back when I was eating and taking antibiotics like that. But, you know, it's better diet that's improving and improving and exercise and lifestyle. It seems like an integrated approach to it all.

Yes, absolutely. I mean, it's a concerted effort and sometimes it's things that are very left field that you don't think about something like stress. Stress management is extremely important for gut health because I remember I first came across this when I was in the second year of university. And what we were looking at at that time in my food science studies was the impact of the types of bacteria in meat versus how stressed the animal was prior to slaughter. So this was the first time I was ever introduced to the concept that stress could actually affect organs, could affect muscle, could affect the body. Your body is a muscle. So what we're finding is that when animals were very stressed, they had a very high level of salmonella, which is a pathogenic, very dangerous organism. But also the meat had a lot more defects, so that greatly impacted the, the animal. So if we can extrapolate that into the human. So stress is also related to having the wrong types of bacteria in the gut, but also the impact of stress hormones holistically on the body. So the body's not really functioning at its optimum. It's not having the right gut bacteria to keep you balanced. So stress management. So keys, things like meditation, very, very simple left field, but they also impact the gut microbiome.

Yeah, totally agree. I think nothing good comes of you being stressed out and all over the place. It's not a good place to be. I wonder what you were talking about in terms of the meat and just food in general. Like, I'm thinking I'm just gonna buy more from a farmer's market and spend less time shopping from supermarkets. But you know, it seems like food is tricky. If you eat the wrong thing, it could damage the gut microbiome. The meat's pumped full of antibiotics. I could be getting the same antibiotic problem that I had before. So what, like where should I get my food or how should I be eating? I guess that's my question.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the easiest approach is to focus on the low hanging fruit. And the lowest hanging fruit is just eat clean. So really clean eating. And that can be quite a confusing concept in itself. But I think if you just start to move away from processed foods from the supermarket, especially those center aisles, because that's where they typically tend to concentrate and really move to the outer aisles of supermarkets and then start to buy fresh produce. Learn how to cook and prepare your meals yourself because that way you know exactly what you're choosing and then you're preparing it. So you know there's no level of adulteration. I mean, so it gives you a lot more confidence that what you're putting in your body is beneficial for the body and the gut microbiome. And that's, that's a starting point. That's a nice, easy, low hanging fruit that will, that you'll feel pretty quickly. You'll feel the benefits of that. So fresh foods, fresh produce cooked from scratch, minimizing condiments, minimizing takeouts, quick restaurant, you know, quick food restaurants, quick service restaurants, Anything where you have not seen how this food is prepared.

Yeah, like what, what comes to mind is something to avoid is like 711 sausage rolls and sandwiches they have in there. Yeah, I don't know, every time I would eat one of those, I would feel horrible afterwards. And that for me comes to mind as something I should avoid. Any type of food like that.

Yeah, totally. I mean, it sounds like such a simple thing, but you know, this, this health Gain is about small wins, small victories. You know, I mean, people typically go through stages and I think the whole focus on this particular gut, this Gut Health podcast in this particular episode is to give you the low hanging fruit. So you start with step one, clean up the diet. And then as we evolve, we can take it to the next degree and even take it to the next level. So I think that's a good place there to say, well, clean up your diet. And then in further episodes we'll look at perhaps people that are on the next level that have gone to this and they're still not getting the optimal results. But start with the clean, the clean eating. That's a nice, nice easy victory for you.

Gotcha.

So what the clean eating will actually do from a gut perspective, it'll facilitate the healing and sealing of that gut lining. Because what you're doing is essentially you're taking out things that are typically inflammatory or damaging to the gut and just kind of getting out of the body's way and just allowing that natural healing process and other things in terms of dietary interventions you could look at to really heal and seal that gut lining is something like a fodmaps. A FODMAPS protocol developed in, at Monash University here in Melbourne in a highly effective way to take out things that are typically irritating to the gut. The one that worked for me was the GAPS diet. So the GAPS diet is another good one. G, A P, G, A P S diet. So you can Google that. Or Michael Mosley who's done some amazing work in the UK and across the world, and he's Clever Guts protocol as well, saying it's got an amazing book called Clever Guts which is all about this first step of eating clean, elimination of things that are typically inflammatory. Yeah.

Okay. So eat clean and maybe introduce some type of fodmap style diet and just take out anything that's, you know, getting in the way of what the body does naturally.

Yes, exactly. So it's getting out of the way. The body has an amazing amount of healing knowledge in itself. It's very self preserving. So it wants to feel good, it wants to feel at its optimum. It's just that sometimes we've got to get out the way. And other than that, there's some really good supplements you could look at. You could look at something like a colostrum powder, which is again to help facilitate that healing of the gut lining. And also collagen, which is another good one, and Restore, which is a supplement developed by Zach Bush in the US which has also got some really good science on healing that gut lining.

Okay, great. And would you have like a list of foods to, like, definitely avoid the, you know, damaging to your gut health?

Yeah, absolutely. I think the most obvious one is the processed foods that are clearly damaging, but then it becomes slight nuances for each person on what affects them. And I think typically you'll know, like, when you have a certain food and it doesn't make you feel. Well, like for me, when I have legumes, any types of beans, it makes me feel pretty yuck. So I know intuitively there's something that's not right with that. So that's something I avoid.

Yeah, getcha. Two points. I was just wondering, in terms of processed food, what does that include? Like, what does it mean to be a processed food?

Yep. So processed food is a food that's been taken from its natural source and then it's being chemically or physically adulterated into a product that can have shelf life.

Shelf life.

So shelf life is the biggest thing with processed foods. There's typically a lot of chemicals in there. There's a lot of antibiotics that added to the food to give it shelf life. So again, it all comes back to eating really clean and fresh produce.

Yeah. Okay.

And also avoiding, if you can, avoiding things like pesticides. Glyphosate is extremely, extremely damaging to the gut.

Yeah. Okay. So eat clean, stay away from processed foods. Try some supplements that are beneficial for your gut bacteria. Sounds like some pretty easy stuff to get started with.

Really easy stuff to start with. And if you stick to that protocol for a few months, I think you're going to get a huge, huge amount of benefit. And that's just what I call the low hanging fruit. And that's just the starting process to make sure that that gut lining is healed and sealed. And then we can look at other things like fermented foods. But I like listeners to really focus on that aspect first.

Cool. Gotcha.

So, guys, I think that's a good place to wrap today. And if you have any questions, comments, please leave a comment on this podcast. We'll also include some show notes and relevant links in the actual show notes as well. So, guys, thank you for your time as always. Come back next week for another episode of the Gut Health Gurus with Crippen and James. Thanks, guys.