August 21, 2024 • 28 mins
Should I be taking probiotics, prebiotics or postbiotics? What is a microbiome? Gut Health is in the zeitgeist and there are very few people who can explain it like Dr. Robynne Chutkan – a renowned gastroenterologist, author of several bestselling digestive health books, and host of The Gutbliss Podcast. On this week’s Wellness Wednesday, Dr. Chutkan gives us tips for the lifestyle changes we can make today for our healthiest microbiome and our gut health.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, besties, Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Today on the bright Side, it's Wellness Wednesday, So we're
delving into a fascinating topic, your gut. Did you know
your gut might just be your second brain. We're exploring
the ins and outs of gut health and the incredible
connection between our stomachs and our minds. So joining us
is doctor Robin Shutkin, a renowned gastro entrologist and author
(00:26):
of several best selling digestive health books.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
She'll guide us through everything.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
We need to know about nourishing our guts and feeling
our best. Plus, we'll tackle the big question how safe
are antibiotics. It's Wednesday, August twenty First, I'm Danielle Robe.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
And I'm Simone Boyce. And this is the bright Side
from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together
to share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Today's Wellness Wednesday is presented by Coligard.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Okay, Danielle, tell me if you relate to this. I
find it hard to leave the grocery store these days
without purchasing at least one gut health product. Oh yeah,
I'm a kumbucha girl. Out the way, there are probiotic Seltzers.
There's kombucha, probiotic shots, countless supplements. I mean, the list
goes on. It's honestly overwhelming, and I, for one don't
necessarily know what's actually effective and what's just effective marketing.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Do you use any of those gut health products personally?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I do. I take seed supplements inconsistently, but whenever I
am consistent with it, I've noticed a difference.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, I also will.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
I'll throw back like a Biokay probiotics shot that basically
tastes like spoiled yogurt. I do eat a lot of yogurt,
which I think is really good for your gut.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
How about you.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I take Lovebug probiotics. I actually get a lot of
sinus infections. I feel like everybody gets like one illness
that pops up over and over again.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Some people get stripped throat.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I'm a sinus infection girl, and so I've always taken
antibiotics to get rid of them, which is so bad
for your gut health. And so after the antibiotics, I
take probiotics, and so I just started taking them every day.
And I have to tell you I've been influenced by
Gwyneth Paltrow because I looked up which one she recommends,
and she takes these Lovebug probiotics and you feel like
(02:18):
it works. Yeah, they really helped my gut health. I
actually felt bloating after I took antibiotics for a little bit,
and this really helped.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I think that's an area that I'm unclear on, is
how do we know our gut is healthy or not?
You know, like, what are the signs that we need
to be paying attention to.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I think that's a great question, and it's something that
we're going to get into today because we're talking about
gut health and we want to look at the science
and dispel these myths. So Doctor Robin Shutkin is a
gastro entrologist and author of several digestive health books, including
Gut Bliss, The Microbiome Solution, and The Blokecure. She's also
(02:56):
the founder of the Digestive Center for Wellness, a gastroentrology
practice is dedicated to uncovering the root cause of GI disorders,
and she's the host of the Gut Bliss podcast. She's
really talking about our guts.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Oh, she knows her stuff, So let's bring her in.
Welcome to the bright Side, Doctor chuck.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
In, Thank you so much, it's so great to be
with you.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well, we're so excited to talk to you today because
gut health is in the zeitgeist, and I think there
are very few people that can really break it down
and explain what gut health means. Now, I want to
start with something that I've heard around town. I've heard
that we have three brains. We have the one in
our head, one in our heart, and there's actually a
third brain in our gut.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Yes, absolutely, the second brain. You're talking about the enteric
nervous system. And fun fact, we have about seven times
as many nerve cells in our gut as we have
in our spinal cord. Now, we don't have as many
as we have in our central nervous system. But the
second brain is a real thing. And think about when
you get butterflies in your stomach, or you have that
(03:59):
gut fing to not do that thing, but you do
it anyway.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
And then you regret it.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Those are actually real feelings based on neurotransmitters and nerve
cells and actual neurological processes that are going on in
our gut.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Wait, so what do those butterflies mean?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Then?
Speaker 4 (04:15):
So I want you just for a minute to think
about where the gut is located. It is in the
exact center of our body. It's literally the engine, and
so it connects to the brain, It connects to the lungs,
the heart, the immune system, the kidneys, all of these
different organs, and it literally feeds them. When it comes
to the brain, it's this bidirectional communication through a nerve
called the vagus nerve, and also through the fact that many, many,
(04:38):
many of the neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, et cetera
that work in our brain are actually made in our gut.
And so, for example, our gut influences things like mood
and cognition and memory, and our brain influences things like motility,
how well our gut moves, enzyme secretion, digestion. So one
(04:59):
of the things that it's so important for people to
realize is that these things that we think are just
in our head are really in our body. And that's
why it's so important to consider these reactions and these
factors when we think about gut health. Gut health isn't
just what we eat and drink and exercising. It's also
what we think, and it's also how we handle stress.
(05:22):
And there are all these studies now that show that
cognitive behavioral therapy, whether that takes a form of guided imagery,
deep breathing, whatever it is, can be not just as
effective as medication, but more effective than medication for conditions
like irritable bowel syndrome, et cetera. And so this is
(05:42):
such powerful stuff because unlike some of these medications, which
may be magnificent, but they all have side effects. So
you know, deep breathing, guided imagery, that's not going to
do anything bad for you. All that's going to do
is trigger your parasympathetic system, your rest and digest, and
make you healthier. I love that we have these things
in our toolbox. And it's really not either or if
(06:04):
you're on prescription medication and that's really helping good for you,
but it's good to know that there are additional things,
and some of these things are actually more effective than
the prescription drugs.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I hear the word microbiome a lot when we talk
about gut health, and I don't actually quite know what
it means.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
What is our microbiome?
Speaker 4 (06:22):
The microbiome refers to all the microscopic organisms that live
in and on our body, and so often we think bacteria,
but it's not just bacteria. It's viruses, it's parasitic organisms,
it's helmets otherwise known as worms.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
It is wan.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Cell protozoa organisms, it's archaos.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
It's a wide range of microscopic critters, if you will,
that live in our body, mostly in our gi tract.
And these microbs are microscopic, but if we scrape them
all up, they would weigh about four pounds. So we're
talking about a lot of organisms. And they're also on
our body. They're on our skin, they're in our ears
(07:04):
or in our mouth, they're in our vaginas or up
our noses. They are literally everywhere. We even have microbes
in organs that we thought were previously sterile, like our lungs.
It turns out, oh no, we have bacteria in our lungs.
It's just that when we have the wrong head of
bacteria in there, we run into problems. So they literally
took us about four hundred years to figure out that
(07:25):
most of these microbes are our friends, not our enemies,
and that their health is very closely intertwined with our health,
and that they have our back basically because you know
what if we die, so do they wear the host.
So they want to keep the host alive and healthy
so that they can thrive, and so Over the last
I would say two or three decades, there has been
(07:48):
an explosion of data literature about the microbiome, and study
after study after study showing that actually, you know, killing
off all these microbes and scrubbing ourselves clean and using
antibiotics and all these different things that damage or microbiome,
all those practices are actually making us sicker, not healthier.
(08:08):
Even in the time I went to medical school in
the nineties and we were singularly focused on being as
clean as possible, and the same for our patients. And
there are definitely times when being clean is really important.
You know, if you're in an operating room, you want
that environment to be sterile. But in terms of just
general self care, the shift has really moved away from
(08:30):
this sort of super sanitization and being super clean into realizing, like,
no kids need to be outside getting dirty and exposure
to soil, microbes in nature, all these things are really
important for maintaining health.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
We have to take a quick break, but we'll be
right back with more from doctor Robin Chuckkin.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Stay with us.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
We're back with doctor Robin Chuckin. I read that we're
actually exposed to bacteria from the moment we're born, and
that a lot of babies get their first dose of
it from the birth canal. Is that where the microbiome
comes from.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
That's such a great question, and you are absolutely right,
And it turns out the fetus itself in the womb
is not even sterile. It's even exposed to some microbes
early on, but not a lot and very select ones.
And that passage through the birth canal, a vaginal birth
is literally the most important moment in your life because
(09:30):
that is when you become colonized with the founding species,
with your man, your mother's microbiome, the Lactobacillus, bithidobacteria, et cetera.
That are going to set you up for success. And
what we see is that babies who are born via
sea section have higher rates of four really serious things
(09:50):
autoimmune disease, asthma, allergies, and obesity, and those things can
follow them into young adulthood.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Well, doctor Shakin, you've been pretty open about your own
experience with this. Your daughter was born VC section, right.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
Yes, it completely changed my trajectory from being a conventional
guest room trologist who was doing lots of colonosko be
writing lots of prescriptions to really understanding the impact of
the microbiome. So I was thirty nine when I had
my daughter, So I was what they call advanced maternal age.
But I was super healthy, no medical problems. I was,
(10:27):
you know, running, swimming, doing all these things. So I
was in really good health. And when my water broke,
I remember like going to the hospital. I got there
around nine am and I was like, Okay, by four pm,
I'm going to have me a baby. I was convinced
that my baby was going to be born during the
Oprah Show between like four and five PM. And I
(10:47):
can't remember what episode it was. I keep meaning to
look back and see what Oprah came and went, no baby.
And one of the things I got they asked me,
you know, they're like, would you like an epidural? And
you're like, really, I am in like agony hair, and
you're saying you can relieve some of that pain. Oh yes, please,
(11:07):
So you get an epidural, But they don't tell you
that getting an epidural is going to significantly increase your
risk of a sea section. And of course for me,
even as a physician, I didn't know about sea sections
being associated with all these significant conditions in the baby.
So I'm like, oh, yes, please please stick that needle
(11:27):
in my back and take away my pain. So you
get an epidural, and then my labor is a little
bit of failure to progress, and so they're like, oh, well,
we're going to give you something to speed up labor,
something to induce labor, and I was like, oh, that
sounds great. They don't tell you that that medication they're
giving you to induce labor also is going to cause
(11:47):
a higher likelihood of sea section. And again not second
guessing these decisions. I think these are all very reasonable
medical decisions, but just pointing out that how someone like
me as a physician, was really unaware this stuff, and
had I known, I probably would have said, you know,
I'm not sure we need to do.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
All of this.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
And then you have a baby who's born via C section,
so she misses out on that important passage through the
birth canal and the seating of her body, of her
little body with all those important microbes. And then because
I had a fever, they put my daughter Sydney in
the nicque the neonatal ICU just for precautionary measures. And
(12:30):
again that's all good because they don't know if my
fever means an infection that could have been transmitted to her.
But what I didn't realize is they also gave her
two doses of an intravenous antibiotic just in case, so
whatever few little microbes she might have got, you know, gone.
And this is where things start to get a little squirrely.
(12:51):
And I couldn't figure out why she was sick all
the time. I was a first mom. She's the only
kid I have, and I would ask other moms. I'm like, oh, well,
how many air infections has your kid had? And they're
like none, and I'm like, oh, my kid is on
her eighth air infection and she's not even one. So
she ended up being on twenty two courses of antibiotics
before she was two years old. And I realized at
(13:14):
that point I had to kind of choose a different path.
And really, I always want to tell people that I
was able to do it because I'm a physician, and
so I know that you know, what are the signs
and symptoms to look for I do not recommend that
people go rogue and decide to stop going to the
beat attrition or stop you know, giving their kid antibotics.
But I really do strongly advise that people start asking
(13:37):
questions like question number one, is this antibiotic absolutely necessary?
And that's the important question to ask, not just for
your kid, but for yourself. Question number two, what would
happen if I didn't take an antibiotic? Because a lot
of the time the answer is, Oh, you'll just be
sick for a day or two longer, And it's like, oh, really, oh,
(13:59):
I'll take that.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
So how do you determine that?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Because like, if you have like I felt like a
six year old, but I got strep throat last month
and I needed that antibiotic, versus if you have a
sinus infection, sometimes you feel like you need the antibiotic,
but really you can wait it out.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
It's just really tough.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Yeah, it's important to also think about the flip side
of antibiotics. When you take an antibiotic, it doesn't just
kill off the bad bug causing the sinus infection or
the strip. It kills off droves of your healthy bacteria.
And in fact, the studies say, it can remove up
to a third of your gut bacteria. There is no
probiotic in the world that can fix that, and so
(14:40):
you have to balance that. It's not like, oh, there's
no risk, there's huge risk. And there's several great published studies.
There's a study looking at rotavirus and children, which is
a common virus that causes diarreal illness. This study showed
that children who received a course of antibiotics in the
two weeks before they got rotavirus were much sicker, They
(15:01):
had more serious infection, more likely to be hospitalized, longer
course of illness. We have studies now showing that antibiotics
and middle aged women are linked to cognitive decline aging
the brain three to four years. We know that antibiotics
in young children are linked to poor executive function cognitive issues.
(15:21):
So it's not just the theoretical risk of an autoimmune
disease down the road. When you take an antibiotic, it
is always always doing some damage to your gut.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
Your gut is always taking a hit.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
And I just go into all the different pros and
cons because I want to be clear, this is not
an easy decision. It's not you know, antibiotics are terribly
you should never use them, or antibotics or panacea you
should always take one. There's a lot of grey zone.
It's very nuanced, and it's really important that your individual
history is a part of that decision making. So, you know,
(15:55):
not suggesting that you confront the doctor like hey, I'm
not taking an antibiotic no matter what that stuff as poison,
but that you really, you know, you have good questions
to ask so that you can make a good informed
decision together.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
As I'm hearing you speak, it sounds like you yourself
had this awakening or enlightenment about the over prescription of
antibiotics that we see in traditional medicine. You have a
medical degree in gastroentrology, You were a physician for many years,
probably working in some of these same traditional conventional medicine circles,
(16:31):
and now you run a digestive wellness center that is
an integrative practice. Describe like what went into that pivot
and that awakening.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Yeah, you know, this is it's good. We can do
some therapy on this. I'm like, yes, it was. I mean,
I it's exactly as you said, Simone, and I like,
I trained at good places Yale and Columbia and Mount Sinai,
and I was on the committees. I've written textbooks and
book chapters, and I considered myself a really good doctor.
And really that experience with my daughter of seeing the
(17:05):
profound effect of the antibiotics, not just the circumstances of
the birth, the C section, but the profound effect of
those antibiotics and how they actually made her more susceptible
to infection. And because I have the incredible privilege in
my practice of treating primarily autoimmune gut disorders like crohnes
and ulster kalitis, celiac disease, things like that, I started
(17:29):
to take note, and I started to ask my patients
about their medical histories, and I started seeing very similar histories.
So all of that led to this awakening, and it really,
you know, I don't want to describe it as losing
your faith because that sounds.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Overly dramatic, right.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I Mean, I am a proud physician, I wear that
white coat, I have a prescription pad. I'm very proud
of being a doctor. But it really made me realize
that a lot of the things we're doing in medicine
are creating illness. It's not that we're not doing good.
We're doing a lot of good. And antibiotics are life
(18:06):
changing antibotics. Over the one hundred years since we've had them,
almost have saved millions of lives.
Speaker 5 (18:11):
So that's true.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
And what's also true is they are widely overprescribed and overused.
And what's also true is they are linked to chronic
conditions that we are only now learning about conditions not
just in our gut, but on our skin, in our brains,
et cetera, because of that connection between the gut and
these other organs. So these three things are all true.
At the same time, it's not all good or all bad.
(18:36):
And so for me realizing that, like I'm focusing on
prescribing drugs and I'm not looking at what people are
eating and how they're living and their habits, and so
that really forced me to embrace an additional type of medicine,
which is the idea of diet and lifestyle. And I'm
really proud that in our practice with our autoimmune patients
(18:58):
who have crones and ulster colitis, we have data showing
a seventy nine percent remission rate using a food as
medicine approach. Now it's not one hundred percent, right, seventy nine,
so about four out of every five patients. But the
most potent immune suppressing drug isn't even fifty percent. And
by the way, it can cause cancer and serious infection.
(19:20):
And if you can achieve those same results for similar
results using diet and lifestyle, then why wouldn't you, Right,
So it's not either or it's both, but trying to
build on that platform.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
We've got to take another short break.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
We'll be right back, and we're back with doctor Robin Chuckin.
So I'm curious about some of those lifestyle changes that
we can make. What are the best things we can
do for our microbiome.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
Well, I like to sum it up with sort of
an oversimplified three words dirt.
Speaker 5 (19:57):
Sweat, veg.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
So we'll start with a vedge, actually, because that's the
most important one. So our healthy gut microbes ferment fiber.
They take fiber and process it in the colon, and
they produce metabolites what we call post biotics, things like
shirt chain fatty acids and those substances. Those post metabolites
(20:19):
are essential not just for maintaining a healthy gut lining,
but high levels of short chain fatty acids equal a
healthy immune system, so they're important for protecting us from infection, cancer,
et cetera, as well as maintaining the health of the gut.
So in order to have high levels of short chain
fatty acid, you got to eat your vegetables.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
So what are the specific vegetables that are great for
our gut.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
So really there are no bad vegetables, but the ones
to really focus on are the really fiber stringy one
so think of like broccoli and asparagus, and salary leafy
greens are good too, and those are really important. And
one thing when you cook broccoli, you don't want to
throw away the stem. The stem is where most of
(21:03):
the fiber is, so you want to chop up that stem,
shave it, do whatever you need to do so that
you can cook it and make it more palatable. Same
thing with the asparagus. Don't snap off the bottom half
of the asparagus because that's where most of the fiber is.
And what we call resistant starches are really important too,
Resistant meaning they're not broken down in the upper part
of our small intestine. So those would be things like
(21:24):
in oats and beans and so on, because they float
down to the colon where they get fermented by the bacteria.
So all the kind of fiber things that we don't
digest well because they're really not there for us. They're
there to feed our bacteria. Those are really important. And
then the dirt and sweat are just you know, getting
outside of nature because other than food and that initial
(21:45):
passage through the birth canal, where do we get our
microbes from. We get them from soil. They're out there
in nature in dirt. So we want to have exposure
to nature. There's a study that shows that kids who
live in a very urban environment, places like New York
City where there's a lot of glass and concrete, have
higher rates of asthma, they have higher rates of exzema
and colonization on the skin with some staff and other
(22:06):
bacteria that are not so helpful, and a lot of
that is because of the lack of exposure to nature.
There's studies that show that rurality, meaning exposure to farm
animals and being out in farmland areas, is protective against
autoimmune diseases. And so even if you do live in
New York City, take your kid to the park, sit
(22:28):
in some grass, so that's a dirt, and then the
sweat part, because we know that exercise has a really
beneficial effect not just on the gut microbiome, keeping it balanced,
because it keeps things moving through so you don't get
stasis of the contents, but also on gut motility and
enzyme secretion, which you want for good gut function.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
So some of the people we see.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
With the worst GI problems are sedentary people, for example,
in nursing homes or people who aren't moving. They get constipated,
they have what we call dyspiosis and sort of imbalanced microbiome,
have all kinds.
Speaker 5 (23:01):
Of motility issues. So there's lots to do.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
I mean, hydration is important, There's so many things, But
I believe in focusing on three things at a time,
and so if you have to focus on three things,
focus on dirt, sweat, and ven.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
I'm really curious to ask you about all these different
probiotics prebiotics that are out there. I'm curious to hear
what you think about that and just if there are
any that you would recommend that are highly effective.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Sure, So let's start with a quick definition for people
who might be a little less familiar. A prebiotic refers
to the food that the bacteria eat, So that's all
the fibers stuff I was talking about. Right, Biota means organism,
let's say micro bacteria for the purposes of this conversation.
So prebiotic is something that is feeding the bacteria. And
(23:49):
so prebiotics, I like to remind people, are not things
that come at a canister with a label from the factory.
Probiotics are actually foods out there in nature, like oats
and celery and beans and all those high fiber foods.
That's a pre biotic. A probiotic refers to the actual bacteria,
not just a store bought wandes in the canister, but
(24:12):
the ones in our body. And probiotics, the definition from
the World Health Organization is a living organism that, when ingested,
confers a benefit to the host. And it's the second
part of that definition that's tricky because the vast majority
of those products out there don't have any efficacy. They
can't show any actual data that this is making you healthier.
(24:35):
So that's a probiotic. And then a post biotic is
what I was talking about. The short chain fatty acids.
Those are metabolites that the bacteria make that are ostensibly
good for us. And so the first point I want
to make, and I relate to this because I was
not a good vegetable eater growing up, and even now,
my preferred way to get in a lot of vegetables
(24:56):
is a green smoothie. But people will do anything to
avoid actually eating a vegetable. I feel like when people
ask me about a probiotic, I feel like if I say,
you know, there's legitimacy for this is and that I'm
getting them off the hook for going out and eating
some vegetables. So the first thing I want to say
to you, my best advice is to feed the bacteria
(25:18):
that are already in your gut, because they are alive.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
When you buy something off.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
The shelf, remember this is an on regulated market. The
product says at the bottom, this product is not intended
to treat or cure any disease. And in the words
of Maya Angelou, when someone tells you who they are,
believe them. So you're taking a product that on the
label tells you right up front, this isn't going to
(25:46):
do anything. But we're taking it anyway because you know,
we want to believe the best thing to do is
to not kill off your microbes.
Speaker 5 (25:54):
With the antibiotics, acid blockers, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
And to eat the food, the prebiotic food, the beans
and greens and broccoli, et cetera, and berries that we
know are going to feed the bacteria in our gut.
But if you were to ask me, the probiotic that
I recommend for certain conditions, because there are over one
hundred scientific articles actually showing that it does what it
says it's going to do, is something called viz bio,
(26:19):
and it's a combination of seven different bacteria, and it
is considered by the FDA a medical food for the
treatment of conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, for something called pouchitis,
which is something that can happen with ulster of klitis
after the colon is removed. There's several veterinary studies, but
I don't recommend that the average healthy person who wants
(26:42):
to be healthier necessarily take a probiotic. I recommend dirt, sweat,
veg for that person. You're going to get a lot
more bang out of going to the farmer's market, buying
some food that was grown in dirt and eating some vegetables.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Doctor Chekin, thank you so much for joining us on
the right side.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Thank you so much. That was so informative.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Oh, it's such a pleasure to be with you. Thanks
for all the great work and conversations you're having.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Doctor Robin Checkkin is a gastro entrologist, author of several
digestive health books, and host of the Gut Bliss podcast.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
That's It. For today's show, tomorrow, we're joined by chef,
restaurateur and cokebook author Ozma Kahn. She's igniting a revolution
in the culinary world, and tomorrow she's sharing her recipe
for change with us. Thank you to our partners at Coligard,
the one of a kind way to screen for colon
cancer in the privacy and comfort of your own home.
Talk to your doctor or healthcare provider, or go to
(27:40):
coliguard dot com slash podcast to see if you're eligible
to order online. If you're forty five or older and
an average risk, ask your healthcare provider about screening for
colon cancer with Coliguard. You can also request a Coliguard
prescription today at coligard dot com slash podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you at your podcast.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I'm simone Voice.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
You can find me at simone Voice, on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
That's r O B A. Y See you tomorrow, folks.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Keep looking on the bright side.
Hey, besties, Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Today on the bright Side, it's Wellness Wednesday, So we're
delving into a fascinating topic, your gut. Did you know
your gut might just be your second brain. We're exploring
the ins and outs of gut health and the incredible
connection between our stomachs and our minds. So joining us
is doctor Robin Shutkin, a renowned gastro entrologist and author
(00:26):
of several best selling digestive health books.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
She'll guide us through everything.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
We need to know about nourishing our guts and feeling
our best. Plus, we'll tackle the big question how safe
are antibiotics. It's Wednesday, August twenty First, I'm Danielle Robe.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
And I'm Simone Boyce. And this is the bright Side
from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together
to share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Today's Wellness Wednesday is presented by Coligard.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Okay, Danielle, tell me if you relate to this. I
find it hard to leave the grocery store these days
without purchasing at least one gut health product. Oh yeah,
I'm a kumbucha girl. Out the way, there are probiotic Seltzers.
There's kombucha, probiotic shots, countless supplements. I mean, the list
goes on. It's honestly overwhelming, and I, for one don't
necessarily know what's actually effective and what's just effective marketing.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Do you use any of those gut health products personally?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I do. I take seed supplements inconsistently, but whenever I
am consistent with it, I've noticed a difference.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, I also will.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
I'll throw back like a Biokay probiotics shot that basically
tastes like spoiled yogurt. I do eat a lot of yogurt,
which I think is really good for your gut.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
How about you.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I take Lovebug probiotics. I actually get a lot of
sinus infections. I feel like everybody gets like one illness
that pops up over and over again.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Some people get stripped throat.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I'm a sinus infection girl, and so I've always taken
antibiotics to get rid of them, which is so bad
for your gut health. And so after the antibiotics, I
take probiotics, and so I just started taking them every day.
And I have to tell you I've been influenced by
Gwyneth Paltrow because I looked up which one she recommends,
and she takes these Lovebug probiotics and you feel like
(02:18):
it works. Yeah, they really helped my gut health. I
actually felt bloating after I took antibiotics for a little bit,
and this really helped.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I think that's an area that I'm unclear on, is
how do we know our gut is healthy or not?
You know, like, what are the signs that we need
to be paying attention to.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I think that's a great question, and it's something that
we're going to get into today because we're talking about
gut health and we want to look at the science
and dispel these myths. So Doctor Robin Shutkin is a
gastro entrologist and author of several digestive health books, including
Gut Bliss, The Microbiome Solution, and The Blokecure. She's also
(02:56):
the founder of the Digestive Center for Wellness, a gastroentrology
practice is dedicated to uncovering the root cause of GI disorders,
and she's the host of the Gut Bliss podcast. She's
really talking about our guts.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Oh, she knows her stuff, So let's bring her in.
Welcome to the bright Side, Doctor chuck.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
In, Thank you so much, it's so great to be
with you.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well, we're so excited to talk to you today because
gut health is in the zeitgeist, and I think there
are very few people that can really break it down
and explain what gut health means. Now, I want to
start with something that I've heard around town. I've heard
that we have three brains. We have the one in
our head, one in our heart, and there's actually a
third brain in our gut.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Yes, absolutely, the second brain. You're talking about the enteric
nervous system. And fun fact, we have about seven times
as many nerve cells in our gut as we have
in our spinal cord. Now, we don't have as many
as we have in our central nervous system. But the
second brain is a real thing. And think about when
you get butterflies in your stomach, or you have that
(03:59):
gut fing to not do that thing, but you do
it anyway.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
And then you regret it.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Those are actually real feelings based on neurotransmitters and nerve
cells and actual neurological processes that are going on in
our gut.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Wait, so what do those butterflies mean?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Then?
Speaker 4 (04:15):
So I want you just for a minute to think
about where the gut is located. It is in the
exact center of our body. It's literally the engine, and
so it connects to the brain, It connects to the lungs,
the heart, the immune system, the kidneys, all of these
different organs, and it literally feeds them. When it comes
to the brain, it's this bidirectional communication through a nerve
called the vagus nerve, and also through the fact that many, many,
(04:38):
many of the neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, et cetera
that work in our brain are actually made in our gut.
And so, for example, our gut influences things like mood
and cognition and memory, and our brain influences things like motility,
how well our gut moves, enzyme secretion, digestion. So one
(04:59):
of the things that it's so important for people to
realize is that these things that we think are just
in our head are really in our body. And that's
why it's so important to consider these reactions and these
factors when we think about gut health. Gut health isn't
just what we eat and drink and exercising. It's also
what we think, and it's also how we handle stress.
(05:22):
And there are all these studies now that show that
cognitive behavioral therapy, whether that takes a form of guided imagery,
deep breathing, whatever it is, can be not just as
effective as medication, but more effective than medication for conditions
like irritable bowel syndrome, et cetera. And so this is
(05:42):
such powerful stuff because unlike some of these medications, which
may be magnificent, but they all have side effects. So
you know, deep breathing, guided imagery, that's not going to
do anything bad for you. All that's going to do
is trigger your parasympathetic system, your rest and digest, and
make you healthier. I love that we have these things
in our toolbox. And it's really not either or if
(06:04):
you're on prescription medication and that's really helping good for you,
but it's good to know that there are additional things,
and some of these things are actually more effective than
the prescription drugs.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I hear the word microbiome a lot when we talk
about gut health, and I don't actually quite know what
it means.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
What is our microbiome?
Speaker 4 (06:22):
The microbiome refers to all the microscopic organisms that live
in and on our body, and so often we think bacteria,
but it's not just bacteria. It's viruses, it's parasitic organisms,
it's helmets otherwise known as worms.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
It is wan.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Cell protozoa organisms, it's archaos.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
It's a wide range of microscopic critters, if you will,
that live in our body, mostly in our gi tract.
And these microbs are microscopic, but if we scrape them
all up, they would weigh about four pounds. So we're
talking about a lot of organisms. And they're also on
our body. They're on our skin, they're in our ears
(07:04):
or in our mouth, they're in our vaginas or up
our noses. They are literally everywhere. We even have microbes
in organs that we thought were previously sterile, like our lungs.
It turns out, oh no, we have bacteria in our lungs.
It's just that when we have the wrong head of
bacteria in there, we run into problems. So they literally
took us about four hundred years to figure out that
(07:25):
most of these microbes are our friends, not our enemies,
and that their health is very closely intertwined with our health,
and that they have our back basically because you know
what if we die, so do they wear the host.
So they want to keep the host alive and healthy
so that they can thrive, and so Over the last
I would say two or three decades, there has been
(07:48):
an explosion of data literature about the microbiome, and study
after study after study showing that actually, you know, killing
off all these microbes and scrubbing ourselves clean and using
antibiotics and all these different things that damage or microbiome,
all those practices are actually making us sicker, not healthier.
(08:08):
Even in the time I went to medical school in
the nineties and we were singularly focused on being as
clean as possible, and the same for our patients. And
there are definitely times when being clean is really important.
You know, if you're in an operating room, you want
that environment to be sterile. But in terms of just
general self care, the shift has really moved away from
(08:30):
this sort of super sanitization and being super clean into realizing, like,
no kids need to be outside getting dirty and exposure
to soil, microbes in nature, all these things are really
important for maintaining health.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
We have to take a quick break, but we'll be
right back with more from doctor Robin Chuckkin.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Stay with us.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
We're back with doctor Robin Chuckin. I read that we're
actually exposed to bacteria from the moment we're born, and
that a lot of babies get their first dose of
it from the birth canal. Is that where the microbiome
comes from.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
That's such a great question, and you are absolutely right,
And it turns out the fetus itself in the womb
is not even sterile. It's even exposed to some microbes
early on, but not a lot and very select ones.
And that passage through the birth canal, a vaginal birth
is literally the most important moment in your life because
(09:30):
that is when you become colonized with the founding species,
with your man, your mother's microbiome, the Lactobacillus, bithidobacteria, et cetera.
That are going to set you up for success. And
what we see is that babies who are born via
sea section have higher rates of four really serious things
(09:50):
autoimmune disease, asthma, allergies, and obesity, and those things can
follow them into young adulthood.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Well, doctor Shakin, you've been pretty open about your own
experience with this. Your daughter was born VC section, right.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
Yes, it completely changed my trajectory from being a conventional
guest room trologist who was doing lots of colonosko be
writing lots of prescriptions to really understanding the impact of
the microbiome. So I was thirty nine when I had
my daughter, So I was what they call advanced maternal age.
But I was super healthy, no medical problems. I was,
(10:27):
you know, running, swimming, doing all these things. So I
was in really good health. And when my water broke,
I remember like going to the hospital. I got there
around nine am and I was like, Okay, by four pm,
I'm going to have me a baby. I was convinced
that my baby was going to be born during the
Oprah Show between like four and five PM. And I
(10:47):
can't remember what episode it was. I keep meaning to
look back and see what Oprah came and went, no baby.
And one of the things I got they asked me,
you know, they're like, would you like an epidural? And
you're like, really, I am in like agony hair, and
you're saying you can relieve some of that pain. Oh yes, please,
(11:07):
So you get an epidural, But they don't tell you
that getting an epidural is going to significantly increase your
risk of a sea section. And of course for me,
even as a physician, I didn't know about sea sections
being associated with all these significant conditions in the baby.
So I'm like, oh, yes, please please stick that needle
(11:27):
in my back and take away my pain. So you
get an epidural, and then my labor is a little
bit of failure to progress, and so they're like, oh, well,
we're going to give you something to speed up labor,
something to induce labor, and I was like, oh, that
sounds great. They don't tell you that that medication they're
giving you to induce labor also is going to cause
(11:47):
a higher likelihood of sea section. And again not second
guessing these decisions. I think these are all very reasonable
medical decisions, but just pointing out that how someone like
me as a physician, was really unaware this stuff, and
had I known, I probably would have said, you know,
I'm not sure we need to do.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
All of this.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
And then you have a baby who's born via C section,
so she misses out on that important passage through the
birth canal and the seating of her body, of her
little body with all those important microbes. And then because
I had a fever, they put my daughter Sydney in
the nicque the neonatal ICU just for precautionary measures. And
(12:30):
again that's all good because they don't know if my
fever means an infection that could have been transmitted to her.
But what I didn't realize is they also gave her
two doses of an intravenous antibiotic just in case, so
whatever few little microbes she might have got, you know, gone.
And this is where things start to get a little squirrely.
(12:51):
And I couldn't figure out why she was sick all
the time. I was a first mom. She's the only
kid I have, and I would ask other moms. I'm like, oh, well,
how many air infections has your kid had? And they're
like none, and I'm like, oh, my kid is on
her eighth air infection and she's not even one. So
she ended up being on twenty two courses of antibiotics
before she was two years old. And I realized at
(13:14):
that point I had to kind of choose a different path.
And really, I always want to tell people that I
was able to do it because I'm a physician, and
so I know that you know, what are the signs
and symptoms to look for I do not recommend that
people go rogue and decide to stop going to the
beat attrition or stop you know, giving their kid antibotics.
But I really do strongly advise that people start asking
(13:37):
questions like question number one, is this antibiotic absolutely necessary?
And that's the important question to ask, not just for
your kid, but for yourself. Question number two, what would
happen if I didn't take an antibiotic? Because a lot
of the time the answer is, Oh, you'll just be
sick for a day or two longer, And it's like, oh, really, oh,
(13:59):
I'll take that.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
So how do you determine that?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Because like, if you have like I felt like a
six year old, but I got strep throat last month
and I needed that antibiotic, versus if you have a
sinus infection, sometimes you feel like you need the antibiotic,
but really you can wait it out.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
It's just really tough.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Yeah, it's important to also think about the flip side
of antibiotics. When you take an antibiotic, it doesn't just
kill off the bad bug causing the sinus infection or
the strip. It kills off droves of your healthy bacteria.
And in fact, the studies say, it can remove up
to a third of your gut bacteria. There is no
probiotic in the world that can fix that, and so
(14:40):
you have to balance that. It's not like, oh, there's
no risk, there's huge risk. And there's several great published studies.
There's a study looking at rotavirus and children, which is
a common virus that causes diarreal illness. This study showed
that children who received a course of antibiotics in the
two weeks before they got rotavirus were much sicker, They
(15:01):
had more serious infection, more likely to be hospitalized, longer
course of illness. We have studies now showing that antibiotics
and middle aged women are linked to cognitive decline aging
the brain three to four years. We know that antibiotics
in young children are linked to poor executive function cognitive issues.
(15:21):
So it's not just the theoretical risk of an autoimmune
disease down the road. When you take an antibiotic, it
is always always doing some damage to your gut.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
Your gut is always taking a hit.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
And I just go into all the different pros and
cons because I want to be clear, this is not
an easy decision. It's not you know, antibiotics are terribly
you should never use them, or antibotics or panacea you
should always take one. There's a lot of grey zone.
It's very nuanced, and it's really important that your individual
history is a part of that decision making. So, you know,
(15:55):
not suggesting that you confront the doctor like hey, I'm
not taking an antibiotic no matter what that stuff as poison,
but that you really, you know, you have good questions
to ask so that you can make a good informed
decision together.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
As I'm hearing you speak, it sounds like you yourself
had this awakening or enlightenment about the over prescription of
antibiotics that we see in traditional medicine. You have a
medical degree in gastroentrology, You were a physician for many years,
probably working in some of these same traditional conventional medicine circles,
(16:31):
and now you run a digestive wellness center that is
an integrative practice. Describe like what went into that pivot
and that awakening.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Yeah, you know, this is it's good. We can do
some therapy on this. I'm like, yes, it was. I mean,
I it's exactly as you said, Simone, and I like,
I trained at good places Yale and Columbia and Mount Sinai,
and I was on the committees. I've written textbooks and
book chapters, and I considered myself a really good doctor.
And really that experience with my daughter of seeing the
(17:05):
profound effect of the antibiotics, not just the circumstances of
the birth, the C section, but the profound effect of
those antibiotics and how they actually made her more susceptible
to infection. And because I have the incredible privilege in
my practice of treating primarily autoimmune gut disorders like crohnes
and ulster kalitis, celiac disease, things like that, I started
(17:29):
to take note, and I started to ask my patients
about their medical histories, and I started seeing very similar histories.
So all of that led to this awakening, and it really,
you know, I don't want to describe it as losing
your faith because that sounds.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Overly dramatic, right.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I Mean, I am a proud physician, I wear that
white coat, I have a prescription pad. I'm very proud
of being a doctor. But it really made me realize
that a lot of the things we're doing in medicine
are creating illness. It's not that we're not doing good.
We're doing a lot of good. And antibiotics are life
(18:06):
changing antibotics. Over the one hundred years since we've had them,
almost have saved millions of lives.
Speaker 5 (18:11):
So that's true.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
And what's also true is they are widely overprescribed and overused.
And what's also true is they are linked to chronic
conditions that we are only now learning about conditions not
just in our gut, but on our skin, in our brains,
et cetera, because of that connection between the gut and
these other organs. So these three things are all true.
At the same time, it's not all good or all bad.
(18:36):
And so for me realizing that, like I'm focusing on
prescribing drugs and I'm not looking at what people are
eating and how they're living and their habits, and so
that really forced me to embrace an additional type of medicine,
which is the idea of diet and lifestyle. And I'm
really proud that in our practice with our autoimmune patients
(18:58):
who have crones and ulster colitis, we have data showing
a seventy nine percent remission rate using a food as
medicine approach. Now it's not one hundred percent, right, seventy nine,
so about four out of every five patients. But the
most potent immune suppressing drug isn't even fifty percent. And
by the way, it can cause cancer and serious infection.
(19:20):
And if you can achieve those same results for similar
results using diet and lifestyle, then why wouldn't you, Right,
So it's not either or it's both, but trying to
build on that platform.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
We've got to take another short break.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
We'll be right back, and we're back with doctor Robin Chuckin.
So I'm curious about some of those lifestyle changes that
we can make. What are the best things we can
do for our microbiome.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
Well, I like to sum it up with sort of
an oversimplified three words dirt.
Speaker 5 (19:57):
Sweat, veg.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
So we'll start with a vedge, actually, because that's the
most important one. So our healthy gut microbes ferment fiber.
They take fiber and process it in the colon, and
they produce metabolites what we call post biotics, things like
shirt chain fatty acids and those substances. Those post metabolites
(20:19):
are essential not just for maintaining a healthy gut lining,
but high levels of short chain fatty acids equal a
healthy immune system, so they're important for protecting us from infection, cancer,
et cetera, as well as maintaining the health of the gut.
So in order to have high levels of short chain
fatty acid, you got to eat your vegetables.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
So what are the specific vegetables that are great for
our gut.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
So really there are no bad vegetables, but the ones
to really focus on are the really fiber stringy one
so think of like broccoli and asparagus, and salary leafy
greens are good too, and those are really important. And
one thing when you cook broccoli, you don't want to
throw away the stem. The stem is where most of
(21:03):
the fiber is, so you want to chop up that stem,
shave it, do whatever you need to do so that
you can cook it and make it more palatable. Same
thing with the asparagus. Don't snap off the bottom half
of the asparagus because that's where most of the fiber is.
And what we call resistant starches are really important too,
Resistant meaning they're not broken down in the upper part
of our small intestine. So those would be things like
(21:24):
in oats and beans and so on, because they float
down to the colon where they get fermented by the bacteria.
So all the kind of fiber things that we don't
digest well because they're really not there for us. They're
there to feed our bacteria. Those are really important. And
then the dirt and sweat are just you know, getting
outside of nature because other than food and that initial
(21:45):
passage through the birth canal, where do we get our
microbes from. We get them from soil. They're out there
in nature in dirt. So we want to have exposure
to nature. There's a study that shows that kids who
live in a very urban environment, places like New York
City where there's a lot of glass and concrete, have
higher rates of asthma, they have higher rates of exzema
and colonization on the skin with some staff and other
(22:06):
bacteria that are not so helpful, and a lot of
that is because of the lack of exposure to nature.
There's studies that show that rurality, meaning exposure to farm
animals and being out in farmland areas, is protective against
autoimmune diseases. And so even if you do live in
New York City, take your kid to the park, sit
(22:28):
in some grass, so that's a dirt, and then the
sweat part, because we know that exercise has a really
beneficial effect not just on the gut microbiome, keeping it balanced,
because it keeps things moving through so you don't get
stasis of the contents, but also on gut motility and
enzyme secretion, which you want for good gut function.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
So some of the people we see.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
With the worst GI problems are sedentary people, for example,
in nursing homes or people who aren't moving. They get constipated,
they have what we call dyspiosis and sort of imbalanced microbiome,
have all kinds.
Speaker 5 (23:01):
Of motility issues. So there's lots to do.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
I mean, hydration is important, There's so many things, But
I believe in focusing on three things at a time,
and so if you have to focus on three things,
focus on dirt, sweat, and ven.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
I'm really curious to ask you about all these different
probiotics prebiotics that are out there. I'm curious to hear
what you think about that and just if there are
any that you would recommend that are highly effective.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Sure, So let's start with a quick definition for people
who might be a little less familiar. A prebiotic refers
to the food that the bacteria eat, So that's all
the fibers stuff I was talking about. Right, Biota means organism,
let's say micro bacteria for the purposes of this conversation.
So prebiotic is something that is feeding the bacteria. And
(23:49):
so prebiotics, I like to remind people, are not things
that come at a canister with a label from the factory.
Probiotics are actually foods out there in nature, like oats
and celery and beans and all those high fiber foods.
That's a pre biotic. A probiotic refers to the actual bacteria,
not just a store bought wandes in the canister, but
(24:12):
the ones in our body. And probiotics, the definition from
the World Health Organization is a living organism that, when ingested,
confers a benefit to the host. And it's the second
part of that definition that's tricky because the vast majority
of those products out there don't have any efficacy. They
can't show any actual data that this is making you healthier.
(24:35):
So that's a probiotic. And then a post biotic is
what I was talking about. The short chain fatty acids.
Those are metabolites that the bacteria make that are ostensibly
good for us. And so the first point I want
to make, and I relate to this because I was
not a good vegetable eater growing up, and even now,
my preferred way to get in a lot of vegetables
(24:56):
is a green smoothie. But people will do anything to
avoid actually eating a vegetable. I feel like when people
ask me about a probiotic, I feel like if I say,
you know, there's legitimacy for this is and that I'm
getting them off the hook for going out and eating
some vegetables. So the first thing I want to say
to you, my best advice is to feed the bacteria
(25:18):
that are already in your gut, because they are alive.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
When you buy something off.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
The shelf, remember this is an on regulated market. The
product says at the bottom, this product is not intended
to treat or cure any disease. And in the words
of Maya Angelou, when someone tells you who they are,
believe them. So you're taking a product that on the
label tells you right up front, this isn't going to
(25:46):
do anything. But we're taking it anyway because you know,
we want to believe the best thing to do is
to not kill off your microbes.
Speaker 5 (25:54):
With the antibiotics, acid blockers, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
And to eat the food, the prebiotic food, the beans
and greens and broccoli, et cetera, and berries that we
know are going to feed the bacteria in our gut.
But if you were to ask me, the probiotic that
I recommend for certain conditions, because there are over one
hundred scientific articles actually showing that it does what it
says it's going to do, is something called viz bio,
(26:19):
and it's a combination of seven different bacteria, and it
is considered by the FDA a medical food for the
treatment of conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, for something called pouchitis,
which is something that can happen with ulster of klitis
after the colon is removed. There's several veterinary studies, but
I don't recommend that the average healthy person who wants
(26:42):
to be healthier necessarily take a probiotic. I recommend dirt, sweat,
veg for that person. You're going to get a lot
more bang out of going to the farmer's market, buying
some food that was grown in dirt and eating some vegetables.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Doctor Chekin, thank you so much for joining us on
the right side.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Thank you so much. That was so informative.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Oh, it's such a pleasure to be with you. Thanks
for all the great work and conversations you're having.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Doctor Robin Checkkin is a gastro entrologist, author of several
digestive health books, and host of the Gut Bliss podcast.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
That's It. For today's show, tomorrow, we're joined by chef,
restaurateur and cokebook author Ozma Kahn. She's igniting a revolution
in the culinary world, and tomorrow she's sharing her recipe
for change with us. Thank you to our partners at Coligard,
the one of a kind way to screen for colon
cancer in the privacy and comfort of your own home.
Talk to your doctor or healthcare provider, or go to
(27:40):
coliguard dot com slash podcast to see if you're eligible
to order online. If you're forty five or older and
an average risk, ask your healthcare provider about screening for
colon cancer with Coliguard. You can also request a Coliguard
prescription today at coligard dot com slash podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you at your podcast.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I'm simone Voice.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
You can find me at simone Voice, on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
That's r O B A. Y See you tomorrow, folks.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Keep looking on the bright side.
Host
Simone Boyce
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