A Holistic Approach to Health Rooted in the Gut Microbiome: 62

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast. Today I am joined by Dr. Laura Brown, and eventually we're going to get into all things gut health. But before we start to that, I'd like for you to just maybe introduce yourself. I've already read your bio, of course, but kind of in your own words, what you're all about and how you got into this sort of work, like any past health issues, or did you just find this passion kind of randomly? I mean, what's, what's your story, Dr. Brown?

Well, I think for, for most of us, we, we get into these things because we have had personal issues that we're on a, you know, we're on, we're on a bit of a quest or a mission in some regards to, to find things out. Conventional medicine is wonderful and has served its purpose in many forms in my life. However, there's been times when I've just not been feeling, you know, 100% well, well in myself after things have happened. And the passion of the science and just the whole roundedness of naturopathic medicine really attracted me to find out more. And of course, as, as I journey on through it, I keep unpeeling the layers of my onion, I always call it, and come deeper and deeper to levels of healing. And levels of discovery, um, within my own self. For others, I'm a witness, um, for their healing and a guide for their healing and transformation in their health. And that comes in many different ways. As a naturopathic doctor, again, holistically, we're looking at body, mind, and spirit and just how they're knit together. And I'm infinitely fascinated at how we are created and how things do knit together and how, you know, you keep pulling on the loose threads and, and you find how things are connected. So that's, uh, that's a big passion of mine and, uh, keeps me curious and humble all at the same time.

So much to learn, right? Which is why I love having these conversations because I get to pick the brains of some really smart people. So did you start out on a more allopathic route before you begin to come into this more naturopathic and holistic sort of healing, or what was your experience with sort of medicine before you got into this? What was your— what was that path like for you? Or did you automatically just say naturopathic, this is it for me, and went right into it?

Oh gosh, no. I have a very eclectic past. Um, I started out in technology in the 1990s, and because that was the way everything was going, so I had actually quit university to go on to the technology field. And my university was all like sciences and stuff, so I went off into that because, um, that's where things were leading in life and followed that trail for quite a while and realized that, okay, it served many purposes, but it wasn't really aligning to my soul's purpose. And as my children went off to university, I went back to school and I started out in business first and I'm like, whoa, this is not my passion. So then I went into my sciences and it was just like everything lit up. And it was like, this is where I need to be. So, so with that, um, when I first stepped into the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine just to do a tour, I thought, I'm just going to go and see how it feels, and it just felt like I was home again. So that was a very correcting feeling for me to say, yep, this is the right path. So I finished off my, my university with the intention of going into naturopathic medicine. So went ahead and did that. So that was like a 6-year mission to finish that. And then I've gone into pharmaceutical training so that I can balance things there and understand how people's medications might interact with holistic and like natural plant-based medicines, things like that. And then the training just continues as I practice because we have obviously, you know, demands from our regulatory body that we do need to continue our education. But I don't think you'd ever not stop anyways because you just continue to find things and learn from different people and learn from different resources. It's a continual, a continual experience of learning for sure.

And that's a very interesting route, kind of circuitous, like my life's route actually, and getting to where I am now. But you mentioned one thing when you were just talking that I thought was pretty interesting, and it's a topic that I think leads us right into the gut health thing. And you were talking about learning more about pharmaceuticals and how that kind of affects overall health and how that works into the picture. I think one of the things that people are discovering with gut health is that not only the food that you put into your body can either support or be a detriment to that whole system, but the supplements and the pharmaceuticals that we're putting in our body can also really affect that gut microbiome. So could you maybe speak a little bit to, you know, what you're sort of learning and discovering as you go through this path of learning more about the pharmaceuticals, how that really interacts with gut health specifically, and And then overall health, obviously that leads to that. But I think we're kind of going down the gut health trail today.

So yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's part of, part of my story. And then obviously as practitioners, you start to attract things in that, that you need to learn from others as well. And in my book Beyond Digestion, I talk not just about my experience, but a lot about patient experience. And we know that many things affect gut health. So yes, food, food first and foremost is our medicine, but it also can, you know, cause issue as well if we have food sensitivities. That type of thing. Medications. And this was something for me, Cheryl, that I found kind of in hindsight. I was diagnosed early with hypothyroidism when I was 14 or 15. And so I was on Levothyroxine for years. They put me on the pill. I mean, this is the, you know, this was the cocktail that they would put you on. So I had been on the pill for years and this wreaks havoc on your microbiome. The oral contraceptive pill will deplete your, your multi-minerals. It will deplete your B vitamins. It will deplete your microbiome. Levothyroxine can, can contribute to small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. So it's just recognizing that and doing your housekeeping. If you need to stay on that, you know, sometimes there's medications that can be helpful, but then it's recognizing, hey, what is it doing to you so that you can work with it instead of against it. So these are things that I talk about as well. But anytime that we're on, you know, any more than 5 drugs at a time, it's going to affect your microbiome. Carte blanche. It doesn't matter what drugs they are, but there are numerous other drugs that interact and interfere and change the, you know, the, the balance of, of the, the microbiota in the gut. And you have to think this is huge because 99% of the genes we carry around in us are not us. They're our microbiome. And these guys are responsible for making vitamins, uh, balance, you know, helping work with our hormones, helping turn on and off genes, help with our digestion. They make short-chain fatty acids out of their, their fermentation. Um, and the short-chain fatty acids feed our gut health, you know, feed our gut cells, but also contribute to, you know, the health of the rest of our body through working with our immune system and things going on. And we're finding that the— not only the balance of microbes, but also what they make with regards to the balance of the short-chain fatty acids, which are sometimes now termed the postbiotics, make a big difference in different disease states. And we don't really know if it's a chicken or an egg, what comes first, that change or the disease state. Does the disease state kind of incur it, or does it incur the disease state? Sometimes we don't really know, but we're seeing trends which are important to observe. And, um, and then, and then to, um, think about how can we affect a positive change towards this. Okay. So that's just, yeah, that's just a little, it's a short answer to your question.

Well, since you mentioned, uh, levothyroxine, and there are so many, I, I think women in particular are more known to have hypothyroidism, and that's kind of the first line drug that doctors tend to prescribe. And you mentioned that that has some specific effects on the microbiome. Do you have any, um, you know, of course without giving necessarily medical advice, but But from personal experience, anything that kind of helped you get your gut health back in order after you discovered that levothyroxine might be something that is impacting it in a negative way?

Exactly. And good point, because none of this that we're talking about is medical advice. None of it's intended to treat any individual. It's just educational purposes only. I practice individualized medicine because I believe we're all individuals. And yes, there are some things that we need to know as a, as a common interaction. Or a common experience, but each person is individual. We're all our own unique chemistry experiments. We have to take that into consideration. Never would you stop a drug or anything prescribed without first talking to your prescribing physician so that you understand all the rep— you know, ramifications, things like that. And not— and sometimes a drug can be helpful, and as I said, you just have to decide what is best for you as an individual. There are alternatives to say, levothyroxine. There's not always an alternative for other types of medications, but sometimes there's other things we can do to help a situation to maybe reduce the amount of medication that somebody is on or wean off of it. So there's different ways that you can work with both your conventional and your natural practitioner together in order to find what's right for you, right? And, um, and as I mentioned before, like, if we look at You know, say somebody's on like methotrexate, which we know inevitably will deplete B12, or a statin we know can deplete CoQ10. Sometimes they're even packaging the pharmaceutical now with some of the vitamin or the nutraceutical to help counteract that depletion. But I have never seen a multi-mineral or multivitamin or a B-complex vitamin packaged with an oral contraceptive pill, right? And nor are we, you know, we're rarely told that that's a case of what could happen. But If you look back into the literature, they've known this for a very, very long time. They've known this for decades and they've just never said anything. So it's kind of doing your homework on some things and recognizing, maybe reading some of the fine print to find out, because nutrient depletion is, is huge and it's so easy to correct either through diet or, or through sometimes just a simple supplement. Um, and it's recognizing, you talk about level thyroxine and I talked about small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. So then it's recognizing what are the other things contributing. You know, it's going in on an individual basis and, and doing some tidy up. For me, it was a, it was a pretty big overhaul, and I didn't learn until later in life that I was really gluten sensitive. I kind of suspected some things were going on. I had done some fitness competitions, or at the time was called bodybuilding, but I think it's more, it was more like fitness when I was in my teens even. And I always felt great when I went on to a diet which was, um, you know, basically your, your lean proteins and, and, um, you know, clean, you know, this potatoes and, you know, your, your just your real food as far as starchy carbs go. Um, and it was low fat then, which I know wasn't the greatest, you know, now that we learn more about fats now. But we, you know, we learn different things as, as generations turn over and as we find out stuff. But anyways, I always felt that it felt really clean and like crystal clear. I could focus. I felt, you know, wonderful. When I was preparing for competition. And I'm like, holy cow. And then I'd go back to, you know, eating kind of your regular diet, and it was like, oh, I don't feel so good. So then I'd go back, you know, so you're kind of going back to forth, forth, back and forth. And, and then I recognize, you know, this isn't really healthy either, going back and forth on the diets. And why don't I just kind of find something that's in the middle? But it was always perplexing to me as to why I could do well on potatoes but not on bread, because I thought, oh, it's the same kind carbohydrate, right? Because this was back in the late '80s, early '90s, when we didn't really have as much of this information floating around out there. So it wasn't actually until I was, you know, well into naturopathic college that I was like, oh, maybe it's the gluten. And, you know, so I'm pulling that out of the diet, and lo and behold, you're like, my rashes on my face disappeared and my digestion started to get better. But it took a long time because there was a lot of damage done that I had to, to go through Um, and then you add stress on top of that going, you know, you know, when you're going to medical school, it's, it's stressful because there's a lot of studying. It's, it's very comp— you know, very compact, um, amount of time that you're putting a lot of information in. And, um, you know, life in general can be stressful, and that in itself can shift our microbiome. So it's a constant housekeeping duty for me with my microbiome. And my gut health. And I'm, you know, I've recognized what foods work for me and don't, and I've learned that sometimes it's just not worth it. It's not a treat anymore. It's just, you know, I choose to eat how I do because I feel better, I think better, I sleep better.

Yeah, and that's an interesting way that you came to discover that it was really the grains and the gluten that were the issue, because you were going on this very sort of, um, you know, like a cutting diet for for bodybuilders or for fitness competitors. But what they'll often cut out is sort of those other sources of carbs, which is pretty common. And that's kind of, you know, my, my path has been that I have gone on keto the last 6 years going on now. And, you know, I definitely feel like now on occasion, because I don't feel that I'm very gluten sensitive or anything that it bothers me, but I do notice more subtle things on the occasion where I do have some gluten or grains. It's like I just, some of the the things you mentioned, maybe don't think quite as clearly, or just, I can definitely tell in my gut, like, things feel a little off. So I think it's interesting how you come to these sort of realizations over the time through experimentation. And, you know, even for people that, like me, that maybe don't feel that they're super gluten sensitive, I think if you really tune in, you'll, you'll notice some subtle things where you might get the hint that, yeah, maybe grains aren't as good for your gut as you thought. So Since we were talking about the things that aren't so good for your gut, can you maybe share with people some practical information about, you know, if they are trying to pay more attention to their gut microbiome, what sort of things might they change in their diet more on the things that they should include instead of focusing on the things that they should not include? Like we talked about grains or gluten, but are there things that you might want to add in that sort of support a more healthy system or add some benefit?

Yeah, and, and just to, you know, just to make a point, like, I see lots of, lots of people with different digestive issues, and, you know, some people do okay on, on grains. They do fine, um, in small amounts or for what they consume. And, and I see that even on testing and, and things like that. So it's not, it's not that, you know, we're putting a big, you know, X on it. It's just, yes, for, for individuals, sometimes it is a big issue. But sometimes, you know, you can handle— and like with you, maybe you can get away with a little bit here and there, um, but you just know that, oh, oh, maybe if I were just to be quiet enough and listen to my body, it's really saying it doesn't really like that, but I could get away with a little bit and be okay. And I mean, that's, you know, that's, that's okay too, to some regard. It's just we all make choices, and then just observe where your choices lead. When you talk about healing a gut, and this is by no means prescriptive, but Whole foods always tend to be more natural for our body. So the processed foods, really, we're just really not meant to be digesting those. They're just really not real food without getting too much far down that. So your whole foods are good. And then fiber, I mean, fiber is huge because, I mean, your microbiome needs fiber. And fiber is essentially what we don't digest with our enzymes, the, the bugs in our gut, in our lower intestine ferment. Okay. Now, people with small intestinal bacterial overgrowth might find that those things are painful because now you've got the bugs in the gut that should be in the lower intestine now in the upper intestine. And now they're trying to ferment in the small intestine. And that's our gas, pain, bloating, things like that. Right. So sometimes saying, oh, get more fiber and they're just like, whoa, that's totally a no-go, right? And fiber was often thought to be your all brand or your wheat products, right? If you're on a wheat-free or gluten-free diet, you still have to be really careful to get enough fiber. So you're looking at different kinds of fiber, right? So you're looking at things like maybe psyllium or flax or slippery elm or stuff like that that can be really helpful, but also garlic and onions and inulin root or acacia gum. There's lots of different ways, you know, flax, chia, that we can get our fiber. Pears, apples, you know, those types of things, vegetables. Lots of different ways to get our fiber. We need to feed our gut, right? We need to feed those guys down there. I always say there's, you know, it's like a big, you know, a big bowl of goldfish. You got to feed them so that they can, you know, do what we want. And if we look after them, they're going to look after us. So fiber is huge in many, you know, both insoluble, which is what we can't break down and that we ferment, and soluble, which more is a gelatinous kind of gel-like thing that attracts water into the gut so we can have a smooth, you know, easy flow of and transition and, and transaction of, you know, food to stool. So that's pretty, pretty helpful. There's lots of things that help, like tight junctions. We're looking at vitamin D. We're looking at, you know, helping heal and promote, you know, the immune system in the gut, which is vitamin D, sometimes zinc, you know, zinc, you know, zinc carnosine can be good. There's so many different things. I talk about a lot of it in my book. Different things, different times. And it's all about dose, timing, and duration for individuals. It's not like you would go and, and do, you know, everything all at once. So I try to find what works. You know, some people really like teas. So then we look at what kind of teas might be helpful. Other people prefer supplements or just whole foods. So, you know, we try to find different ways. I don't know if any of that kind of perked your interest, if you have more questions.

Yeah, I guess one of the things that I thought is, you know, there is this trend, uh, sort of towards carnivore. And for some, some of the things that you mentioned, like some skin conditions, different things, a lot of people that go on carnivore, which is basically a zero fiber kind of situation, actually do a lot better. Would your suspicion be that maybe they have SIBO? And so for removing those things for a short amount of time may allow things to settle down and to heal. Or do you, do you have any other thoughts around that on, on why some people actually thrive more with a no fiber kind of situation with their gut?

Well, it's like the FODMAP, right? You're taking out all of the, all of the fermentable oligosaccharides. So you're taking those things out and, and when you go on that kind of restrictive diet or the carnivore diet, you're taking out the things so you're no longer feeding those bugs in your gut, right? So yeah, so I like your approach and your theory that maybe they have SIBO. Yeah, maybe they do. Maybe that needs to be addressed. I also find a lot of the time when people have food sensitivities, their ileocecal valve, which is a valve between the small and the large intestine, gets, gets a little lazy. And this is what also can promote the, the bacteria, you know, translocating from the large bowel to the small bowel and promoting that, that SIBO or the small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. And I can often find it in a physical exam. I kind of do my little finger work around the area and it can be really sensitive. And with a, with a little bit of a movement that, that I was shown years ago, you can actually just close that valve off. And sometimes the pain and the burning and the sensation can literally go away. So it's a, it's a helpful part, but then you also have to treat what's going on. And You know, I use, you know, those cases, you know, enteric coated essential oils of certain kinds for short periods of time can be helpful. Yeah, and dietary stuff. And I always say there's no one right diet for anyone, not even for their lifetime. So I find like, really, you know, even like, you know, if you go really strict, just meat or really strict, just, you know, keto or really strict this or that. It's like, okay, let's use it as a stepping stone to get— because we are meant to eat a variety of foods, I believe, because, you know, plant-based foods, there's like a ton of phytonutrients. There's over 5,000 phytonutrients in vegetables and plant-based foods. And it's like, that's a lot of nutrients that you're missing out on and fibers that you're missing out on. Might you feel good short-term on meat? Maybe, yeah. But don't lose sight that maybe down the road you might want to switch. Equally, some people feel really good short-term on a vegan diet, right? 2 or 3 months, it helps reset stuff. The keto diet, 2 or 3 months, helps reset that insulin sensitivity factor. And then maybe they can just go low-carb instead of like really, you know, really, really, you know, low to medium instead of, you know, really super strict. And that is often easier for people to follow, and they still feel really good. It's not strict keto, but it's, you know, they've done that to kind of initiate and maybe do some intermittent fasting, which again can be helpful for the gut. Because if you're thinking that you're always putting something down your digestive tract, that's like a manufacturing process. And if you're running a manufacturing plant 24/7, you know, 7 days a week, over and over again, when does it have time to, you know, to reboot and, and re, you know, refurbish itself. Well, that's where fasting comes into play because you're giving yourself a digestive break. So that can help reset things as well.

Great analogy with the manufacturing plant. I like that. I might have to use that because you do need— it's just like it needs time. You need time for maintenance, right? And that's when autophagy comes in. You just give your system a chance to actually heal a little bit of its own instead of trying to put more things in there to heal stuff. Why not just let it do its own thing for a little while? I think that's a great analogy and a way to look at it with the factory. I like that.

Absolutely. And, um, you know, some of that comes from like my background and working with manufacturers and stuff. And it's just like, yeah, you've got to do the maintenance and you can't just run stuff all the time without doing the maintenance. And if we're not sleeping, that's another part, you know, if we're not sleeping, That's kind of our daily maintenance time. Sleep is not inactive. It's a very active state of refurbishing and, you know, resetting so many processes in our body. And the gut is hugely important to that. That's why, you know, we need to fast. And those who eat late at night or, you know, or wake up in the middle of the night and eat, they're disrupting that fasting period. Every time you eat, you have to think, even thinking of food, you know, you start, you know, the saliva starts and the saliva is in the mouth starting, but you're also getting the juices starting through the rest of the digestive digestive tract. So it's initiating and getting things ready. It's getting the enzymes ready to go. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's a big focus, right? It's a big focus. So that, um, that in itself, doing the, um, the fasting sometimes can, can be a huge component, right?

Oh yeah, love it. And that's one of the things I'm a big fan of, and people have heard me chat about that before. So glad to hear that you think that is useful as well. Um, before we sort of wrap things up today, we haven't even talked about Well, you mentioned your book early on, but maybe you could tell people a little bit about— since we've gone through some of this stuff, you're talking about the gut microbiome, how to feed it, how to rest it. But what would be— I guess, why would people come to this book? What's sort of the overall premise and what could they hope to get out of it?

Yeah, thanks for asking. I appreciate your interest in the book. It was published and released in February 2021. And Beyond Digestion is really meant to help you get to the root cause of your, your health problems, specifically starting in the gut. But I believe the gut is, is, is the root of many things. Now, I was reading an article yesterday, you know, like root cause health, you know, health concerns. Well, yes, there might be multiple issues going on. It's not always one issue. But what often, you know, rings at my knocks on my door is, is, Laura, if you haven't, you know, figured out what's going on with this patient, have you thought of their gut? Because it typically comes back to that. So that's the book. So helps you understand how to listen to your body. Okay. Whether it's whispering at you or screaming. Okay. So it helps, helps you understand and arm you with good questions to go to your, you know, your functional medicine or your naturopathic doctor to ask those good questions so that you can have a good long look at yourself and then say, okay, these are the things that I need to ask about. Helps you understand how to detoxify your gut, harmonize your sleep and biorhythms, how to strengthen your immune system, balance your hormones, talk about emotional regulation because, oh my gosh, that vagus nerve is so connected. Rest and digest, right? If we're always, you know, on, you know, the fight, flight, freeze, or flop, we're not digesting. And I have a, you know, big conversation about that in the book. And then turning into, you know, tuning into our body's inner wisdom. Um, because I believe that not only do I digest our food, we digest the world around us. And for those who are empaths or recovering empaths or highly sensitive people, you are trying to digest other people's emotions, and you need to learn your boundaries. Okay, if you have issues with boundaries in relationships, you likely have issues with boundaries in your gut. Leaky relationship, leaky up, right? So then it's okay, we need to heal that as well because energetically we need to address this, okay? And then we need to connect to that primal source. And this is, you know, kind of our connection to the soul. This is why I say, you know, this is, you know, how gut health connects to your mind, body, and soul. And this is what we talk about. So we talk about testing, we talk about, you know, the— we talk about peeling the onions. We look at the physical components of gut health, the emotional components, you know, food or mood, what comes first, cravings, that kind of thing. And then we talk about cognitive, you know, how cognition, you know, mind-gut axis, vagal nerve involvement, sleep involvement with gut health, fasting, different types of diets. And then we talk about that soul connection, the vagal nerve, you know, connecting in, trusting ourself, right? This is our solar plexus, This is where we set our boundaries, boundaries not just with food, but, you know, and in our gut lining, but also with others. So that is kind of the, the overview of Beyond Digestion. So it's about more than digesting our food. It's about digesting the world around us.

And I love that you added that in there because I think that is such an underappreciated part of health that most people don't want to think about that much because it's very like kind of woo-woo, you know, kind of hippie, hippie dippy, whatever. But it's, it's And that's really, I think, probably the final piece of the puzzle for a lot of people because you can address all this very physical stuff. But if you're not addressing some of the stuff that you just mentioned, I think you're really missing the boat. Uh, so Dr. Laura, if people want to connect with you, find out more about your work, um, have the ability to work with you, can you tell everybody if you're active on social media, your website, all that kind of good stuff?

Absolutely. So I am on LinkedIn. You can find me there. It's, um, And I'll send you my Linktree if I didn't already.

I can add it to the notes for sure.

And you can add it to the notes. That's easiest. My clinic is, is Southend Guelph. That's g-u-e-l-p-h.ca. So Southendguelph.ca. So you can put that up on your links as well. And yeah, so mostly LinkedIn is where I do a lot of activity. And, and then on my website, I see patients within the province of Ontario, Canada.

That.

Um, that's— I am a regulated practitioner, so I do need to see people who are physically in Ontario, and I can do that either on the phone or, um, or in person. So I see a lot of people that way. My book is my way of reaching out to people. I am working on, um, a couple of other things that might reach out to others, but, um, there's— they're still in, in the making. So that's—

stay tuned. Awesome. Well, Dr. Laura, it was so nice to meet you today, and I appreciate you taking the time to share your your knowledge and your, um, that again, that side with the soul. I think people should look into this more, and I just appreciate you for putting that out in the world. So thank you for coming today.

Ah, thanks so much, Cheryl. It's a pleasure to meet you. I wish— just appreciate all the work that you're doing in your field.

Thank you so much.