April 16, 2024 • 27 mins
Unlock the secrets to a flourishing gut microbiome right from the start, with the guidance of gut health guru Dr. Christine Hafer. Together, we navigate the complex world of infant gut health, emphasizing the pivotal role of maternal gut flora and how early exposure to beneficial bacteria can shape a baby's future wellbeing. Whether you're curious about the implications of birthing methods or seeking strategies to optimize your child's gut health regardless of your personal feeding choices, this episode promises a wealth of knowledge. Dr. Hafer and I reveal the continuous opportunities for enhancing gut wellness and the adaptability of our bodies, providing reassurance that it's never too late to improve gut health.
Transitioning to the world of growing children, we discuss the intricacies of food sensitivities, allergies, and the external factors that can tip the scales. Discover the power of a balanced diet, the role of environmental triggers, and the significance of gut-friendly foods post-antibiotics. Dr. Hafer also sheds light on the benefits of functional medicine in tackling conditions like SIBO and histamine intolerance, offering a tailored approach to dietary management. Our conversation is not just about troubleshooting but about building a roadmap for long-term, gut-centric health. For parents grappling with picky eaters or those seeking to reintroduce dietary diversity, this episode is your guide to nurturing a robust, happy gut in your children.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Living a
Full Life.
We are diving even deeper intogut health this week.
If you didn't listen to thelast couple of podcasts, it's
okay.
This information is going to beabsolutely wonderful.
Dr Christine Hafer is with metoday.
Hi, hey, and we're going todive into when everything works
well.
We usually take it for granted,but we're going to be talking
(00:21):
about when things start to notwork well, what we can do to
help put it back on track,especially with our gut.
This one's going to be a greatone.
Take out your pen and paper forthis one.
That's going to be some greattips.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Okay, so, based on research, a lot of what I do,
almost all that I do, is basedon research and there's a lot of
research when it comes to guthealth.
There's kind of a normalprogression, you know, when
babies are born, that they godown and they then have good gut
health from that.
So we sort of talked about howto have good health good health
(00:56):
last time, but I missed a coupleof key, important things, so I
wanted to touch base on them.
But this is kind of the normalflow, based on, you know, a lot
of research.
And I'm going to talk aboutbirth and breastfeeding, and
this is not judgment, this is um, you know, if things don't go
the ideal, ideal way, then wesort of have an idea of what to
(01:17):
do to work on gut health andimprove it, cause it's always
improvable, no matter where youare.
If you've had everything tickedoff against you, you know, um,
you haven't gone down the rightpath.
There's always room forimprovement on our gut and
probably every adult needs towork on their gut health on a
regular basis.
So, um, even if you've doneeverything perfectly, but here's
kind of you know, based onresearch and there's a um,
(01:39):
there's been a lot of goodmicrobiome research.
Probably I don't know for thelast 15 years been a lot of good
microbiome research.
Probably, I don't know, for thelast 15 years we've sort of
been involved.
There was a company calledUbiome and when we moved to
Tampa our family actuallyparticipated in some of the
research.
So we did stool tests for, likeour babies and our toddlers and
ourselves and they developed, Ithink I think from what I've
(02:03):
talked to from these researchcompanies, a lot of the norms
that we understand for a lot ofthe gut tests.
Um, and of course I'm surethere's more than one test that
did all this, but more than onecompany, probably tons Um.
But there's a, a group calledtiny health.
They do baby tests.
So, um, babies don't reallyhave a developed microbiome Um,
(02:25):
babies have leaky gut.
Um, leaky gut is when you havebasically intestinal
permeability so things get inand out.
That would be less than idealas an adult but for a baby it's
normal Um, but here's the, thebasic flow on what would lead to
good health, so good gut health.
So step one is mom, so mom'scarrying a baby and mom has good
(02:47):
gut flora.
A lot of moms don't.
And now you know there's someproviders you can see and moms
can do a vaginal microbiome testand see what's growing there.
That should and shouldn't be,but that's just something
regularly checked.
So ideally a baby is born viavaginal birth.
If they're born with a bellybirth, a C-section, then that's
okay too, but they're probablynot going to have some of the
(03:10):
same bacteria.
There's different bacteria andthat babies have in their guts
when they're born.
Vaginally versus born would bea belly birth.
So that's step one.
Step two is breastfeeding, andnot all moms can breastfeed.
Not all moms want to breastfeed, and that's fine too.
Again, not a judgment, but whena mom has a good microbiome and
she breastfeeds her child andthere's some debate on how long,
(03:31):
but I think two years is prettyaccepted as normal that's not
something all moms can do.
Moms work, Moms are busy, momshave issues, we have a lot going
on.
But that would set us up forgood health, good gut health.
So in saying that babies allhave a leaky gut, they do and
that's purposeful.
So from what we understand, youknow, breast milk is a lot of
(03:56):
it is just fodder for gut healthto grow the microbiome.
That's a lot of what it does.
So yes, there are nutrients yes, there are fats.
Yes, there are proteins, yes,there's, you know, everything
that a baby needs.
It's a perfect food.
As long you know, even mom thatdoesn't eat a perfect diet has
a pretty good quantity qualityof breast milk.
(04:18):
So yeah, that's reallyimportant.
Sorry, the dog is here.
Our dog came up, um, but yeah,so um, the leaky gut really
lends to a lot of things goingin and out of the gut and
growing um the microbiome, butalso nourishing the baby in a
(04:40):
better way.
Um, I don't know what theresearch is on when leaky guts
are no longer leaky.
I can tell you from theresearch we did with Ubiome that
you know it takes a coupleyears for babies to have a more
normal.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Normal quotes looking microbiome, Dr Melillo says.
Two years to about two yearsold is when we start to develop
our stop gut.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, probably, and it might be a bit longer.
It might be, and for somepeople it persists,
unfortunately.
And then we see things likefood sensitivities, food
allergies.
There's a lot more reasons forthat than just leaky gut, but
that's yeah.
Then we have food introduction.
So when babies are sitting,when babies have a good pinch of
grass and they're no longernone of the tongue thrust reflex
(05:24):
than food, we talk about food,you know, eating lots of good
fruits and vegetables, slowlyintroducing them to see if your
baby responds to them or not.
I think that's important too,because we all have genetic
predispositions to, you know,having a lectin sensitivity or
an oxalate sensitivity or celloscillates, and some people, you
(05:45):
know, have the geneticpredisposition.
They won't have that geneexpressed.
That's called like a SNP.
Whether it's expressed or not.
It's a different story.
That's environmental, but youknow.
And so we can look at whenwe're introducing different
foods to babies, whether or notthey're having certain reactions
.
So skin reactions would show up.
(06:05):
We think about skin reactions alot in leaky gut, but kids have
leaky guts.
So one of the things that'simportant and there's a lot of
good research on this when weintroduce things that are more
allergenic, so more kids haveegg allergies and peanut
allergies or gluten allergies.
When we introduce them betweenthere's eight to 18 months.
(06:28):
For some reason they seem to dobetter with them.
It develops less things.
So a lot of people want toavoid gluten for a really long
time, but probably it's a goodidea to introduce them between
eight and 18 months.
Peanuts that's a big one forpeanuts too, and I know there's
a lot of controversy on peanuts,and it's pretty good idea to
introduce it between eight and18 months.
Um, peanuts that's a big onefor peanuts too, and I know
there's a lot of controversy onpeanuts, and it's pretty
terrifying if you have a childwith a peanut allergy, right, or
(06:49):
another anaphylactic reality orallergy, but yeah, um.
Next is eating a diet rich infiber, um, polyphenols, um,
getting good protein intake,which is again smaller for kids
than it is for adults.
Adults eat a lot more Um.
And then avoiding as many ultraprocessed foods as possible.
(07:10):
It's always really important.
So sugary cereals are not ourfriends.
Candy is not our friends.
Small portions are okay, butthis should not be the bulk of
our diet.
The bulk of our diet should befruits, vegetables, proteins,
healthy grains, um foods, allthat, and then you know.
The last piece of the puzzle, Ithink, is that we want to be on
as few antibiotics as possible.
You can't avoid it sometimesand some you know pediatricians
(07:34):
are more apt to hand outantibiotics than others, but we
want to avoid them as much aspossible.
If you do have to have them,you know, do things like
probiotics, good foods afterthings like that.
One more chink in the chain thatcan happen is different
exposures that can cause certainallergies or sensitivities.
So mold is one of those.
(07:55):
We live in Florida.
There is a lot of mold here.
Mold's everywhere.
It's easy for mold to grow,it's easy to be exposed to mold,
and mold is one of those thingsthat can trigger a whole immune
cascade that can lead to thingslike food allergies where
someone wouldn't have it beforethey might have it following the
mold exposure.
Chemicals can causesensitivities.
(08:16):
Again, genetics can play a part.
So there's just a lot of thingsthat can go right.
When things don't go right, thenwe kind of talk about.
We can do a more deep dive intowhat are the bigger conditions
that can go wrong.
So when we talk about what'snot right, a GI map, a gut test,
(08:37):
a stool test will kind of.
Let us know if there'ssomething growing in the gut
that shouldn't be there or ifthere's intestinal health
markers like fat in the stoolwhich could be indicative of a
few things in inflammation ortoo little bile.
We can look at zonulin, whichis a measure of leaky gut.
So leaky gut is pretty.
(08:58):
You know big People talk aboutleaky gut.
Oh yeah, leaky gut.
Basically what it is intestinalis intestinal permeability.
So again we talked about youknow big people talk about leaky
gut.
Oh yeah, leaky gut.
Basically what it is intestinalis intestinal permeability.
So um, again we talked about.
You know that babies all haveit.
That's normal, they're supposedto, and then it starts to go
away around age two um, normally.
But basically it means that theum, the enterocytes in the gut,
(09:20):
have too much space betweenthem, so there are proteins that
hold them close together andwhen they start to lyse away,
there's different proteins likeoccludin.
Zonulin is the one that wemeasure for a leaky gut test in
the stool and that would tell usif there is a degree of leaky
gut.
So everybody's got some zonulin.
Everyone has got a certaindegree of leaky gut.
Even if you don't, if you havethe most perfect sealed gut ever
(09:49):
there are still.
You know macrophages are stillgoing to go in through the
enterocyte lining or not thelining, the holes between them.
There will be small ones tosample what's in the gut, to see
if there are pathogens in there, if there are other things
going on.
So you're supposed to have someamount of communication, but
not too much.
If you have too much then foodgoes leaking out.
Big food particles.
Gluten is a really big foodparticle.
Not everybody needs to begluten-free.
Some people really benefit fromit.
(10:11):
Gliadin is one of those things.
An anti-gliadin IgA issomething we measure also in the
GM app that shows us if someoneis having an immune reaction to
gluten.
There are food sensitivity teststhat can tell you if you're
having reactions to things.
They can be helpful for somepeople more helpful for kids, I
think, than adults or somebodythat's got a lot of weird
mystery symptoms.
(10:32):
Because they're not the mostreliable tests, you could take
one one day and then another dayand they could be a bit
different.
There are certain things in thefood sensitivity test that
would make me think leaky gut.
If you're having lots of smallimmune reactions to a ton of
different things, that would bea sign of leaky gut, yeah, and
then you know, with the stooltest, with the GI map, you're
(10:53):
looking for things likepathogens which can cause all
sorts of problems in the gutlining, problems with the immune
system can have yeast.
Everybody knows about candida.
Or, if you don't know aboutcandida, it's an opportunistic
yeast that should live in smallquantities in the gut and you
know, pretty much in the wholegut lining.
(11:14):
So gut lining goes from mouth,sinuses could be included,
because things drip down there,down the esophagus, the entire
small, the stomach, the smallintestine, um the colon, so
everywhere.
So when kidney takes over, itonly really takes over, um, when
there's not enough goodbacteria to keep it down.
So, um, that's why it's soimportant to have a good
(11:38):
microbiome balance.
Um, the other thing you know wecan have parasites.
Parasites are really big,especially in the natural health
world.
There's some debate about howmany parasites are there.
When you do parasitic testingthere's only certain ones that
can test.
For Some people think thateverybody has parasites.
Some people think that maybe weshould have a certain amount of
parasites Not so sure thatthat's true.
(12:02):
And then dysbiosis.
So dysbiosis is when you havethe wrong kinds of bacteria.
So maybe you have all the rightbacteria, but you have them in
the wrong quantity.
So normally we should havethese commensal or keystone
bacteria, those 12 or 13 that wenormally check for.
When they're too small or someof them are overgrown, they can
cause some issues that can leadto opportunistic bacteria to
(12:25):
grow like strep, staph materialbacteria, other things like that
.
And then you know, in the guttoo we can look at autoimmune
bacteria, so basically bacteriathat we know that when they're
present, or when they're presentin too high quantities, they
can elicit immune response inour body.
So bacteria in our gut arealways giving other signals to
(12:49):
other bacteria.
We're more bacteria than we arehuman cells.
I don't know what the exactnumber is, but we have more
bacteria in our body than wehave human cells.
So we are incredibly dependenton the right amount of bacteria
being in the right spot.
So when the wrong ones arethere, you know they're giving
off chemical signals to eachother.
They are changing and hijackingour body in a way that maybe
(13:13):
shouldn't be done.
They are changing the way thatour immune response happens,
which cytokines are beingreleased.
So certain bacteria are knownto be more inflammatory.
Certain bacteria are related tocertain autoimmune diseases and
disorders.
For instance, prevotella islinked to rheumatoid arthritis.
(13:39):
That's a big one.
That's known.
Fusobacterium is one.
There's just this big researchpaper that came out about how
it's linked to colon cancer andthey were just doing an oral
microbiome test and they werefinding a lot of fusobacterium
in the mouth and then the linkto metastatic colon cancer later
.
So, and it's also related toinflammatory bowel disease.
(14:00):
We know as well.
So, yeah, the bacteria reallymatters.
When it's not going well and youhave you know symptoms.
You have gut symptoms.
That's probably the easiest wayto figure out that you've got a
microbiome issue is gutsymptoms, but it can be skin
issues.
So the gut and the skin arelinked so strongly we can't
(14:24):
separate them.
Whenever somebody comes in,especially kids with skin issues
, we look to the gutAutoimmunity.
So gut health is a root causefor autoimmunity, chronic
infections also.
But when we think about guthealth and we think about
something like dysbiosis thatcan be seen in the body as an
infection, when the wrongbacteria are growing in the
(14:44):
wrong spot, it changes the wayeverything happens Because,
again, we are more bacteria thanwe are human cells, so they
really affect everything in ourbody.
Food, allergies, of course, youknow, we kind of talked about
some of the triggers for foodallergies.
There's a lot of triggers wedon't understand for food
allergies too.
So it's not just mold exposure,viral infections.
(15:07):
There's a lot of reasons.
We don't know why kids, kids,adults to have reactions to food
.
So food allergy is differentthan a food sensitivity.
A food allergy is an IgEreaction.
So those are bigger cells orbigger signalers.
They have a bigger effect thanyou know an IgG or an IgA
(15:30):
reaction as a food sensitivityand that affects our immune
system as well.
So our immune system when ithas an IgE response, it can be
pretty loud, right, you can leadto anaphylaxis, it can lead to
swelling.
I think we used to think interms of allergies being really,
really loud.
But I think that a lot ofallergists are kind of doing
more testing and finding moreallergies in kids too.
(15:51):
But the IgG and the IgA are thefood sensitivity reactions.
We also call them delayedhypersensitivity, because you
have leaky gut and certainbacteria have affected your gut,
(16:11):
lining enough that that leakygut has started and there is
some food leaking through andyou've been eating a lot of
dairy.
So now your body has found thedairy, has attacked, it thinks
that it's a foreign pathogen.
And every time you eat dairyyour body has an immune reaction
to it, not IgE, not that bigreaction, but the delayed
sensitivity.
So symptoms might start threedays after you've had that that
(16:32):
dairy.
So, um, while it's harder topinpoint things like food
sensitivities, they definitelyare something that takes away
and changes our body's reactionto things.
And then you can kind of godown the path of food reactions.
So specific chemicals ormolecules in foods I don't think
(16:53):
these.
You know we all have geneticpredispositions to maybe respond
to these things or not.
Just because you have, you cando genetic tests and if it shows
that you have a lectininsensitivity or a lectin
intolerance, you may neverexperience that, but if you have
some gut issues or a viralinfection and then your body
(17:14):
starts to react to that, solectins are one.
Lectins are in a lot ofdifferent things.
So a lot of these things areplant matter, which is a bugger
because we need a lot of goodplant foods fruits, fruits,
vegetables, greens to have ahealthy microbiome.
But if our body's reacting tothem they're going to make us
feel pretty cruddy and it'sgoing to be hard for us to eat
them without our body having animmune response to them.
(17:36):
So histamine is one.
Histamine is linked a lot withautoimmunity.
A lot of people who haveautoimmune disorders um find
they do better on a lowhistamine diet or histamine
intolerance type diet.
It's challenging but it canhelp.
Oxalates are another.
Oxalates are in so many plantfoods, biggest in things like
almonds, spinach.
(17:57):
You can do a quick Googlesearch and see what different
food things are in differentthings.
Salicylates are another one.
Then there's more right,there's a bunch of different
molecules but these are thetypical big ones.
The histamine, oxalates,lectins and salicylates are the
biggest one that affect people.
(18:17):
So that's another road to godown.
If you're having food reactionsand you're not sure what's going
on, yeah, and then in the know,in the long list of things that
can go wrong, a lot of thingsthat we're seeing recently lots
of small intestinal bacteriaovergrowth, so SIBO can be
(18:39):
caused.
Basically, what SIBO is is inour small intestine.
We should not have muchbacteria.
So most of the gut bacteria inour body is in our colon, and so
our colon is responsible forfermenting foods.
It's responsible for producingbutyrate there's so many things.
It's responsible for producingcertain nutrients, things like
(19:00):
that.
But when we start to developmore bacteria in our small
intestine where it shouldn't be.
That causes a whole host ofthings.
That's another trigger forautoimmunity.
That's a trigger for immuneissues, because our small
intestine is supposed to beabsorbing water, it's supposed
to be absorbing nutrients.
(19:20):
It's not supposed to bebreaking down fermenting food,
like our colon is.
So a lot of the bacteria thatlike to grow there will live off
of things like methane orsulfur.
So when someone has suspectedSIBO, there is a breath test
that can check it.
We used to think it was eitherthe methane or the sulfur, but
(19:43):
now we start to know that thereare different subtypes, so the
breath test isn't always thebest.
One of the best things you cando with SIBO is to go on a low
FODMAP SIBO specific diettemporarily and see if your
symptoms improve Again.
With histamines too, that'd beanother way you can test if you
have histamine intolerance ornot is to avoid histamine laden
(20:05):
foods, histamine liberatingfoods.
Um, there is a really goodwebsite that is uh, I think it's
mass cell three, 60.com, andthey talk about a lot of these
different foods and histaminesand the different levels of them
, and they have specific diets.
So if you ever think why do Ireact to this specific food?
You can you know if you've beenreacting to it for a while.
You can go on and you canfigure out oh, it's got leptins
(20:26):
in it or it's got histamines init and maybe I have an overall
issue with those things.
But the trick is that evenpeople with pretty overt
histamine intolerance will reactto one food and not others that
other people have histamineintolerance react to.
So it's very specific and it'svery challenging to figure out
what exactly you're reacting to.
(20:51):
But you know, sibo can betriggered by decreased motility
in the gut.
Some of the things that lead todecreased motility can be
gallbladder that's notfunctioning properly, too little
bile.
That can be caused by thingslike estrogen imbalance too much
estrogen versus the unopposedprogesterone.
Um, low stomach acid is reallybig and so many people are on
proton pump inhibitors becausethey think they have heartburn,
(21:15):
because they have the gut, theburning in their gut right, the
burning in their stomach, um.
But then it's like 48 hours ofbeing on a PPI.
It starts to decrease the um,the HDL pumps, the hydrochloric
acid pumps, and that can causeSIBO.
You know it doesn't happenimmediately, it doesn't happen
in all people.
But it's one of those thingsthat is linked.
(21:35):
And then if you've had previoussurgeries or previous trauma,
that can cause um an issue withhow things are moving.
So a lot of people that havehad multiple abdominal surgeries
will have um adhesions in theirgut.
So a lot of people that havehad multiple abdominal surgeries
will have adhesions in theirgut.
So that decreases the mobility.
So what do we do when we havegut issues?
(21:56):
So I just threw a ton ofinformation at you.
Some of it probably wasn'tsuper necessary to hear.
But what do we do?
Testing Testing seems to benumber one and if you do a stool
test, you need to rule outpathogens, you need to rule out
yeast, you need to rule outparasites, you need to see what
is growing in your gut, what'snot growing in your gut, and
(22:17):
then when you find those things,you work on correcting them.
So there's a lot of differentthings you can do Lifestyle
changes I typically find thatmost people have enough issue
with their microbiome that justdoing a prebiotic and probiotic
isn't going to fix it.
They need things removed.
Strep is really common.
I'm seeing a ton of E coli,which we know isn't great.
(22:40):
I'm seeing so much E colilately and people that don't
even have really severe gutissues.
You would think that E coli,they'd be super sick and they're
just not, but they don't feelwell, they can't figure out why.
Um, yeast parasites, thesethings all need to be removed
and fixed, and then we need towork on the microbiome balance
after too.
So it's a long process.
(23:01):
Gut healing takes a minimum ofsix months, and that includes
all the lifestyle changes thatneed to be done as well while
it's worked on.
Anything else.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
No, you see parents and people defaulting to the
literature, which is fantastic,and they're like you know.
I've gone sugar-free,dairy-free, gluten-free to try
and help myself because they'restruggling or their kids
struggling, and those are, Ithink, great starts.
But Dr Christine just lined upa whole bunch of reasons why
that may not be enough or it maynot be the right thing.
(23:35):
Maybe we truly don't have thedairy issue.
It doesn't matter.
And these tests, especially likestool tests, are easily
accessible.
You can do it yourself onlineand send them in and get the
report.
But, as you can see, the floraand the microbiome is so complex
that having a coach that knowswhat they're doing or a doctor
that knows what they're doinggoes way further than just being
(23:56):
put on an antibiotic for 10days and then hoping for the
best.
So that's what we help patientswith and when they're
frustrated, that's wherefunctional medicine comes in and
you start doing the right testsat the right time.
But, like Dr Haver said, ittakes a while.
This is not a one week thing orone month thing.
It takes a while and there hasto be a game plan to get to the
(24:18):
finish line with our guts.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah, yeah, it's worth it, though, you know, when
people come in and they've gotsymptoms that may not even be
related to gut, but we talkabout, we go through all the
symptoms and all the healthhistory and we, I think, wow.
I think that maybe your gut wassomething we need to check on
and they work on it.
It's amazing what goes away.
You know, sometimes people needto do multiple rounds of things
(24:44):
.
Right, they need extra work,but hormones can improve when
gut health improves.
Immune tolerance can improvewhen gut health improves.
And a lot of people who you knowit's fine to cut things up in
the temporary, but when you areliving off of some people come
to me eating 10 foods becausethey can't tolerate other things
(25:05):
.
That sucks and that's not along-term way to live.
And the goal of any gut healthplan should always get you to a
point where you can be eating asmany healthy foods as possible.
And then you know I like the 80, 20 rule for gut healing.
You probably need to be prettyclose to a hundred percent for
lifestyle changes for healing.
But if you eat healthy andwhole, clean foods 80% of the
(25:30):
time and then 10 to 20% of thetime you know you're eating
things that are less thanhealthy, that's okay.
But not everybody can justdecide to do that and easily get
their gut health when it'sreally wrecked really needs to
improve.
But it's just amazing to seehow simply you know when people
come in with these crazysymptoms and there's so much
(25:51):
work they need to do and youknow they're struggling so much
just focusing on the gut tostart and then doing a cleanup
with hormones, doing a cleanupwith, you know, some immune
supplements or whatever else wefigure out needs to happen after
, and then it becomes a loteasier.
When you work on gut healthfirst, then you can do easier
(26:12):
things in the future.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah, that was great.
A lot of food for thought.
The nice thing about functionalmedicine is it can be done
virtually, and most of it isdone virtually.
So if you need some help,contact us at info at
fulllifetampacom.
We will guide you in the rightdirection.
Whether we can or cannot helpyou, we'll find you the right
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(26:36):
anywhere in Florida or UnitedStates or Canada, we can help
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Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Living a
Full Life.
We are diving even deeper intogut health this week.
If you didn't listen to thelast couple of podcasts, it's
okay.
This information is going to beabsolutely wonderful.
Dr Christine Hafer is with metoday.
Hi, hey, and we're going todive into when everything works
well.
We usually take it for granted,but we're going to be talking
(00:21):
about when things start to notwork well, what we can do to
help put it back on track,especially with our gut.
This one's going to be a greatone.
Take out your pen and paper forthis one.
That's going to be some greattips.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Okay, so, based on research, a lot of what I do,
almost all that I do, is basedon research and there's a lot of
research when it comes to guthealth.
There's kind of a normalprogression, you know, when
babies are born, that they godown and they then have good gut
health from that.
So we sort of talked about howto have good health good health
(00:56):
last time, but I missed a coupleof key, important things, so I
wanted to touch base on them.
But this is kind of the normalflow, based on, you know, a lot
of research.
And I'm going to talk aboutbirth and breastfeeding, and
this is not judgment, this is um, you know, if things don't go
the ideal, ideal way, then wesort of have an idea of what to
(01:17):
do to work on gut health andimprove it, cause it's always
improvable, no matter where youare.
If you've had everything tickedoff against you, you know, um,
you haven't gone down the rightpath.
There's always room forimprovement on our gut and
probably every adult needs towork on their gut health on a
regular basis.
So, um, even if you've doneeverything perfectly, but here's
kind of you know, based onresearch and there's a um,
(01:39):
there's been a lot of goodmicrobiome research.
Probably I don't know for thelast 15 years been a lot of good
microbiome research.
Probably, I don't know, for thelast 15 years we've sort of
been involved.
There was a company calledUbiome and when we moved to
Tampa our family actuallyparticipated in some of the
research.
So we did stool tests for, likeour babies and our toddlers and
ourselves and they developed, Ithink I think from what I've
(02:03):
talked to from these researchcompanies, a lot of the norms
that we understand for a lot ofthe gut tests.
Um, and of course I'm surethere's more than one test that
did all this, but more than onecompany, probably tons Um.
But there's a, a group calledtiny health.
They do baby tests.
So, um, babies don't reallyhave a developed microbiome Um,
(02:25):
babies have leaky gut.
Um, leaky gut is when you havebasically intestinal
permeability so things get inand out.
That would be less than idealas an adult but for a baby it's
normal Um, but here's the, thebasic flow on what would lead to
good health, so good gut health.
So step one is mom, so mom'scarrying a baby and mom has good
(02:47):
gut flora.
A lot of moms don't.
And now you know there's someproviders you can see and moms
can do a vaginal microbiome testand see what's growing there.
That should and shouldn't be,but that's just something
regularly checked.
So ideally a baby is born viavaginal birth.
If they're born with a bellybirth, a C-section, then that's
okay too, but they're probablynot going to have some of the
(03:10):
same bacteria.
There's different bacteria andthat babies have in their guts
when they're born.
Vaginally versus born would bea belly birth.
So that's step one.
Step two is breastfeeding, andnot all moms can breastfeed.
Not all moms want to breastfeed, and that's fine too.
Again, not a judgment, but whena mom has a good microbiome and
she breastfeeds her child andthere's some debate on how long,
(03:31):
but I think two years is prettyaccepted as normal that's not
something all moms can do.
Moms work, Moms are busy, momshave issues, we have a lot going
on.
But that would set us up forgood health, good gut health.
So in saying that babies allhave a leaky gut, they do and
that's purposeful.
So from what we understand, youknow, breast milk is a lot of
(03:56):
it is just fodder for gut healthto grow the microbiome.
That's a lot of what it does.
So yes, there are nutrients yes, there are fats.
Yes, there are proteins, yes,there's, you know, everything
that a baby needs.
It's a perfect food.
As long you know, even mom thatdoesn't eat a perfect diet has
a pretty good quantity qualityof breast milk.
(04:18):
So yeah, that's reallyimportant.
Sorry, the dog is here.
Our dog came up, um, but yeah,so um, the leaky gut really
lends to a lot of things goingin and out of the gut and
growing um the microbiome, butalso nourishing the baby in a
(04:40):
better way.
Um, I don't know what theresearch is on when leaky guts
are no longer leaky.
I can tell you from theresearch we did with Ubiome that
you know it takes a coupleyears for babies to have a more
normal.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Normal quotes looking microbiome, Dr Melillo says.
Two years to about two yearsold is when we start to develop
our stop gut.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, probably, and it might be a bit longer.
It might be, and for somepeople it persists,
unfortunately.
And then we see things likefood sensitivities, food
allergies.
There's a lot more reasons forthat than just leaky gut, but
that's yeah.
Then we have food introduction.
So when babies are sitting,when babies have a good pinch of
grass and they're no longernone of the tongue thrust reflex
(05:24):
than food, we talk about food,you know, eating lots of good
fruits and vegetables, slowlyintroducing them to see if your
baby responds to them or not.
I think that's important too,because we all have genetic
predispositions to, you know,having a lectin sensitivity or
an oxalate sensitivity or celloscillates, and some people, you
(05:45):
know, have the geneticpredisposition.
They won't have that geneexpressed.
That's called like a SNP.
Whether it's expressed or not.
It's a different story.
That's environmental, but youknow.
And so we can look at whenwe're introducing different
foods to babies, whether or notthey're having certain reactions
.
So skin reactions would show up.
(06:05):
We think about skin reactions alot in leaky gut, but kids have
leaky guts.
So one of the things that'simportant and there's a lot of
good research on this when weintroduce things that are more
allergenic, so more kids haveegg allergies and peanut
allergies or gluten allergies.
When we introduce them betweenthere's eight to 18 months.
(06:28):
For some reason they seem to dobetter with them.
It develops less things.
So a lot of people want toavoid gluten for a really long
time, but probably it's a goodidea to introduce them between
eight and 18 months.
Peanuts that's a big one forpeanuts too, and I know there's
a lot of controversy on peanuts,and it's pretty good idea to
introduce it between eight and18 months.
Um, peanuts that's a big onefor peanuts too, and I know
there's a lot of controversy onpeanuts, and it's pretty
terrifying if you have a childwith a peanut allergy, right, or
(06:49):
another anaphylactic reality orallergy, but yeah, um.
Next is eating a diet rich infiber, um, polyphenols, um,
getting good protein intake,which is again smaller for kids
than it is for adults.
Adults eat a lot more Um.
And then avoiding as many ultraprocessed foods as possible.
(07:10):
It's always really important.
So sugary cereals are not ourfriends.
Candy is not our friends.
Small portions are okay, butthis should not be the bulk of
our diet.
The bulk of our diet should befruits, vegetables, proteins,
healthy grains, um foods, allthat, and then you know.
The last piece of the puzzle, Ithink, is that we want to be on
as few antibiotics as possible.
You can't avoid it sometimesand some you know pediatricians
(07:34):
are more apt to hand outantibiotics than others, but we
want to avoid them as much aspossible.
If you do have to have them,you know, do things like
probiotics, good foods afterthings like that.
One more chink in the chain thatcan happen is different
exposures that can cause certainallergies or sensitivities.
So mold is one of those.
(07:55):
We live in Florida.
There is a lot of mold here.
Mold's everywhere.
It's easy for mold to grow,it's easy to be exposed to mold,
and mold is one of those thingsthat can trigger a whole immune
cascade that can lead to thingslike food allergies where
someone wouldn't have it beforethey might have it following the
mold exposure.
Chemicals can causesensitivities.
(08:16):
Again, genetics can play a part.
So there's just a lot of thingsthat can go right.
When things don't go right, thenwe kind of talk about.
We can do a more deep dive intowhat are the bigger conditions
that can go wrong.
So when we talk about what'snot right, a GI map, a gut test,
(08:37):
a stool test will kind of.
Let us know if there'ssomething growing in the gut
that shouldn't be there or ifthere's intestinal health
markers like fat in the stoolwhich could be indicative of a
few things in inflammation ortoo little bile.
We can look at zonulin, whichis a measure of leaky gut.
So leaky gut is pretty.
(08:58):
You know big People talk aboutleaky gut.
Oh yeah, leaky gut.
Basically what it is intestinalis intestinal permeability.
So again we talked about youknow big people talk about leaky
gut.
Oh yeah, leaky gut.
Basically what it is intestinalis intestinal permeability.
So um, again we talked about.
You know that babies all haveit.
That's normal, they're supposedto, and then it starts to go
away around age two um, normally.
But basically it means that theum, the enterocytes in the gut,
(09:20):
have too much space betweenthem, so there are proteins that
hold them close together andwhen they start to lyse away,
there's different proteins likeoccludin.
Zonulin is the one that wemeasure for a leaky gut test in
the stool and that would tell usif there is a degree of leaky
gut.
So everybody's got some zonulin.
Everyone has got a certaindegree of leaky gut.
Even if you don't, if you havethe most perfect sealed gut ever
(09:49):
there are still.
You know macrophages are stillgoing to go in through the
enterocyte lining or not thelining, the holes between them.
There will be small ones tosample what's in the gut, to see
if there are pathogens in there, if there are other things
going on.
So you're supposed to have someamount of communication, but
not too much.
If you have too much then foodgoes leaking out.
Big food particles.
Gluten is a really big foodparticle.
Not everybody needs to begluten-free.
Some people really benefit fromit.
(10:11):
Gliadin is one of those things.
An anti-gliadin IgA issomething we measure also in the
GM app that shows us if someoneis having an immune reaction to
gluten.
There are food sensitivity teststhat can tell you if you're
having reactions to things.
They can be helpful for somepeople more helpful for kids, I
think, than adults or somebodythat's got a lot of weird
mystery symptoms.
(10:32):
Because they're not the mostreliable tests, you could take
one one day and then another dayand they could be a bit
different.
There are certain things in thefood sensitivity test that
would make me think leaky gut.
If you're having lots of smallimmune reactions to a ton of
different things, that would bea sign of leaky gut, yeah, and
then you know, with the stooltest, with the GI map, you're
(10:53):
looking for things likepathogens which can cause all
sorts of problems in the gutlining, problems with the immune
system can have yeast.
Everybody knows about candida.
Or, if you don't know aboutcandida, it's an opportunistic
yeast that should live in smallquantities in the gut and you
know, pretty much in the wholegut lining.
(11:14):
So gut lining goes from mouth,sinuses could be included,
because things drip down there,down the esophagus, the entire
small, the stomach, the smallintestine, um the colon, so
everywhere.
So when kidney takes over, itonly really takes over, um, when
there's not enough goodbacteria to keep it down.
So, um, that's why it's soimportant to have a good
(11:38):
microbiome balance.
Um, the other thing you know wecan have parasites.
Parasites are really big,especially in the natural health
world.
There's some debate about howmany parasites are there.
When you do parasitic testingthere's only certain ones that
can test.
For Some people think thateverybody has parasites.
Some people think that maybe weshould have a certain amount of
parasites Not so sure thatthat's true.
(12:02):
And then dysbiosis.
So dysbiosis is when you havethe wrong kinds of bacteria.
So maybe you have all the rightbacteria, but you have them in
the wrong quantity.
So normally we should havethese commensal or keystone
bacteria, those 12 or 13 that wenormally check for.
When they're too small or someof them are overgrown, they can
cause some issues that can leadto opportunistic bacteria to
(12:25):
grow like strep, staph materialbacteria, other things like that
.
And then you know, in the guttoo we can look at autoimmune
bacteria, so basically bacteriathat we know that when they're
present, or when they're presentin too high quantities, they
can elicit immune response inour body.
So bacteria in our gut arealways giving other signals to
(12:49):
other bacteria.
We're more bacteria than we arehuman cells.
I don't know what the exactnumber is, but we have more
bacteria in our body than wehave human cells.
So we are incredibly dependenton the right amount of bacteria
being in the right spot.
So when the wrong ones arethere, you know they're giving
off chemical signals to eachother.
They are changing and hijackingour body in a way that maybe
(13:13):
shouldn't be done.
They are changing the way thatour immune response happens,
which cytokines are beingreleased.
So certain bacteria are knownto be more inflammatory.
Certain bacteria are related tocertain autoimmune diseases and
disorders.
For instance, prevotella islinked to rheumatoid arthritis.
(13:39):
That's a big one.
That's known.
Fusobacterium is one.
There's just this big researchpaper that came out about how
it's linked to colon cancer andthey were just doing an oral
microbiome test and they werefinding a lot of fusobacterium
in the mouth and then the linkto metastatic colon cancer later
.
So, and it's also related toinflammatory bowel disease.
(14:00):
We know as well.
So, yeah, the bacteria reallymatters.
When it's not going well and youhave you know symptoms.
You have gut symptoms.
That's probably the easiest wayto figure out that you've got a
microbiome issue is gutsymptoms, but it can be skin
issues.
So the gut and the skin arelinked so strongly we can't
(14:24):
separate them.
Whenever somebody comes in,especially kids with skin issues
, we look to the gutAutoimmunity.
So gut health is a root causefor autoimmunity, chronic
infections also.
But when we think about guthealth and we think about
something like dysbiosis thatcan be seen in the body as an
infection, when the wrongbacteria are growing in the
(14:44):
wrong spot, it changes the wayeverything happens Because,
again, we are more bacteria thanwe are human cells, so they
really affect everything in ourbody.
Food, allergies, of course, youknow, we kind of talked about
some of the triggers for foodallergies.
There's a lot of triggers wedon't understand for food
allergies too.
So it's not just mold exposure,viral infections.
(15:07):
There's a lot of reasons.
We don't know why kids, kids,adults to have reactions to food
.
So food allergy is differentthan a food sensitivity.
A food allergy is an IgEreaction.
So those are bigger cells orbigger signalers.
They have a bigger effect thanyou know an IgG or an IgA
(15:30):
reaction as a food sensitivityand that affects our immune
system as well.
So our immune system when ithas an IgE response, it can be
pretty loud, right, you can leadto anaphylaxis, it can lead to
swelling.
I think we used to think interms of allergies being really,
really loud.
But I think that a lot ofallergists are kind of doing
more testing and finding moreallergies in kids too.
(15:51):
But the IgG and the IgA are thefood sensitivity reactions.
We also call them delayedhypersensitivity, because you
have leaky gut and certainbacteria have affected your gut,
(16:11):
lining enough that that leakygut has started and there is
some food leaking through andyou've been eating a lot of
dairy.
So now your body has found thedairy, has attacked, it thinks
that it's a foreign pathogen.
And every time you eat dairyyour body has an immune reaction
to it, not IgE, not that bigreaction, but the delayed
sensitivity.
So symptoms might start threedays after you've had that that
(16:32):
dairy.
So, um, while it's harder topinpoint things like food
sensitivities, they definitelyare something that takes away
and changes our body's reactionto things.
And then you can kind of godown the path of food reactions.
So specific chemicals ormolecules in foods I don't think
(16:53):
these.
You know we all have geneticpredispositions to maybe respond
to these things or not.
Just because you have, you cando genetic tests and if it shows
that you have a lectininsensitivity or a lectin
intolerance, you may neverexperience that, but if you have
some gut issues or a viralinfection and then your body
(17:14):
starts to react to that, solectins are one.
Lectins are in a lot ofdifferent things.
So a lot of these things areplant matter, which is a bugger
because we need a lot of goodplant foods fruits, fruits,
vegetables, greens to have ahealthy microbiome.
But if our body's reacting tothem they're going to make us
feel pretty cruddy and it'sgoing to be hard for us to eat
them without our body having animmune response to them.
(17:36):
So histamine is one.
Histamine is linked a lot withautoimmunity.
A lot of people who haveautoimmune disorders um find
they do better on a lowhistamine diet or histamine
intolerance type diet.
It's challenging but it canhelp.
Oxalates are another.
Oxalates are in so many plantfoods, biggest in things like
almonds, spinach.
(17:57):
You can do a quick Googlesearch and see what different
food things are in differentthings.
Salicylates are another one.
Then there's more right,there's a bunch of different
molecules but these are thetypical big ones.
The histamine, oxalates,lectins and salicylates are the
biggest one that affect people.
(18:17):
So that's another road to godown.
If you're having food reactionsand you're not sure what's going
on, yeah, and then in the know,in the long list of things that
can go wrong, a lot of thingsthat we're seeing recently lots
of small intestinal bacteriaovergrowth, so SIBO can be
(18:39):
caused.
Basically, what SIBO is is inour small intestine.
We should not have muchbacteria.
So most of the gut bacteria inour body is in our colon, and so
our colon is responsible forfermenting foods.
It's responsible for producingbutyrate there's so many things.
It's responsible for producingcertain nutrients, things like
(19:00):
that.
But when we start to developmore bacteria in our small
intestine where it shouldn't be.
That causes a whole host ofthings.
That's another trigger forautoimmunity.
That's a trigger for immuneissues, because our small
intestine is supposed to beabsorbing water, it's supposed
to be absorbing nutrients.
(19:20):
It's not supposed to bebreaking down fermenting food,
like our colon is.
So a lot of the bacteria thatlike to grow there will live off
of things like methane orsulfur.
So when someone has suspectedSIBO, there is a breath test
that can check it.
We used to think it was eitherthe methane or the sulfur, but
(19:43):
now we start to know that thereare different subtypes, so the
breath test isn't always thebest.
One of the best things you cando with SIBO is to go on a low
FODMAP SIBO specific diettemporarily and see if your
symptoms improve Again.
With histamines too, that'd beanother way you can test if you
have histamine intolerance ornot is to avoid histamine laden
(20:05):
foods, histamine liberatingfoods.
Um, there is a really goodwebsite that is uh, I think it's
mass cell three, 60.com, andthey talk about a lot of these
different foods and histaminesand the different levels of them
, and they have specific diets.
So if you ever think why do Ireact to this specific food?
You can you know if you've beenreacting to it for a while.
You can go on and you canfigure out oh, it's got leptins
(20:26):
in it or it's got histamines init and maybe I have an overall
issue with those things.
But the trick is that evenpeople with pretty overt
histamine intolerance will reactto one food and not others that
other people have histamineintolerance react to.
So it's very specific and it'svery challenging to figure out
what exactly you're reacting to.
(20:51):
But you know, sibo can betriggered by decreased motility
in the gut.
Some of the things that lead todecreased motility can be
gallbladder that's notfunctioning properly, too little
bile.
That can be caused by thingslike estrogen imbalance too much
estrogen versus the unopposedprogesterone.
Um, low stomach acid is reallybig and so many people are on
proton pump inhibitors becausethey think they have heartburn,
(21:15):
because they have the gut, theburning in their gut right, the
burning in their stomach, um.
But then it's like 48 hours ofbeing on a PPI.
It starts to decrease the um,the HDL pumps, the hydrochloric
acid pumps, and that can causeSIBO.
You know it doesn't happenimmediately, it doesn't happen
in all people.
But it's one of those thingsthat is linked.
(21:35):
And then if you've had previoussurgeries or previous trauma,
that can cause um an issue withhow things are moving.
So a lot of people that havehad multiple abdominal surgeries
will have um adhesions in theirgut.
So a lot of people that havehad multiple abdominal surgeries
will have adhesions in theirgut.
So that decreases the mobility.
So what do we do when we havegut issues?
(21:56):
So I just threw a ton ofinformation at you.
Some of it probably wasn'tsuper necessary to hear.
But what do we do?
Testing Testing seems to benumber one and if you do a stool
test, you need to rule outpathogens, you need to rule out
yeast, you need to rule outparasites, you need to see what
is growing in your gut, what'snot growing in your gut, and
(22:17):
then when you find those things,you work on correcting them.
So there's a lot of differentthings you can do Lifestyle
changes I typically find thatmost people have enough issue
with their microbiome that justdoing a prebiotic and probiotic
isn't going to fix it.
They need things removed.
Strep is really common.
I'm seeing a ton of E coli,which we know isn't great.
(22:40):
I'm seeing so much E colilately and people that don't
even have really severe gutissues.
You would think that E coli,they'd be super sick and they're
just not, but they don't feelwell, they can't figure out why.
Um, yeast parasites, thesethings all need to be removed
and fixed, and then we need towork on the microbiome balance
after too.
So it's a long process.
(23:01):
Gut healing takes a minimum ofsix months, and that includes
all the lifestyle changes thatneed to be done as well while
it's worked on.
Anything else.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
No, you see parents and people defaulting to the
literature, which is fantastic,and they're like you know.
I've gone sugar-free,dairy-free, gluten-free to try
and help myself because they'restruggling or their kids
struggling, and those are, Ithink, great starts.
But Dr Christine just lined upa whole bunch of reasons why
that may not be enough or it maynot be the right thing.
(23:35):
Maybe we truly don't have thedairy issue.
It doesn't matter.
And these tests, especially likestool tests, are easily
accessible.
You can do it yourself onlineand send them in and get the
report.
But, as you can see, the floraand the microbiome is so complex
that having a coach that knowswhat they're doing or a doctor
that knows what they're doinggoes way further than just being
(23:56):
put on an antibiotic for 10days and then hoping for the
best.
So that's what we help patientswith and when they're
frustrated, that's wherefunctional medicine comes in and
you start doing the right testsat the right time.
But, like Dr Haver said, ittakes a while.
This is not a one week thing orone month thing.
It takes a while and there hasto be a game plan to get to the
(24:18):
finish line with our guts.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah, yeah, it's worth it, though, you know, when
people come in and they've gotsymptoms that may not even be
related to gut, but we talkabout, we go through all the
symptoms and all the healthhistory and we, I think, wow.
I think that maybe your gut wassomething we need to check on
and they work on it.
It's amazing what goes away.
You know, sometimes people needto do multiple rounds of things
(24:44):
.
Right, they need extra work,but hormones can improve when
gut health improves.
Immune tolerance can improvewhen gut health improves.
And a lot of people who you knowit's fine to cut things up in
the temporary, but when you areliving off of some people come
to me eating 10 foods becausethey can't tolerate other things
(25:05):
.
That sucks and that's not along-term way to live.
And the goal of any gut healthplan should always get you to a
point where you can be eating asmany healthy foods as possible.
And then you know I like the 80, 20 rule for gut healing.
You probably need to be prettyclose to a hundred percent for
lifestyle changes for healing.
But if you eat healthy andwhole, clean foods 80% of the
(25:30):
time and then 10 to 20% of thetime you know you're eating
things that are less thanhealthy, that's okay.
But not everybody can justdecide to do that and easily get
their gut health when it'sreally wrecked really needs to
improve.
But it's just amazing to seehow simply you know when people
come in with these crazysymptoms and there's so much
(25:51):
work they need to do and youknow they're struggling so much
just focusing on the gut tostart and then doing a cleanup
with hormones, doing a cleanupwith, you know, some immune
supplements or whatever else wefigure out needs to happen after
, and then it becomes a loteasier.
When you work on gut healthfirst, then you can do easier
(26:12):
things in the future.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah, that was great.
A lot of food for thought.
The nice thing about functionalmedicine is it can be done
virtually, and most of it isdone virtually.
So if you need some help,contact us at info at
fulllifetampacom.
We will guide you in the rightdirection.
Whether we can or cannot helpyou, we'll find you the right
help that you need.
That's the first step togetting the help that you need.
Visit us at fulllifetampacom.
And just because it says Tampa,doesn't matter where you live,
(26:36):
anywhere in Florida or UnitedStates or Canada, we can help
you with all the labs and thingsthat we can do right down the
street from you.
It's either blood work or a kitto the house and we can help
you out.
So reach out and any otherquestions you have.
We love this stuff.
Thanks for tuning in.
See you next week.
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.