Speaker 1: 1:25

What's going on, everybody? It's Dr JT Tahir. I'm your host of the Next Level Human podcast and I have a great guest for you all today, and actually you may have recognized her because I have been on her podcast, the Pretty Well podcast. This is Lisa Smith, who's a functional medicine practitioner, and we're going to have a conversation in the realm of lots of stuff in functional medicine, but I think we're going to start Lisa, if it's cool with you. We're going to have a conversation in the realm of lots of stuff in functional medicine, but I think we're going to start Lisa, if it's cool with you. We're going to start with the gut and, just so all of you know the Pretty Well podcast. It is a very popular podcast in functional medicine. Make sure you check it out. I was on that and it's Lisa Smith Pretty. Is that why it's pretty well? Because when I see your name and it's Lisa Smith pretty, is that why it's pretty well?

Speaker 2: 2:12

Like you know, cause when I see your name, sometimes I see Lisa Smith pretty. Oh, wow, that's funny, oh, that's, that should be a new, that that's a fun, a fun angle.

Speaker 1: 2:18

Because it's like that's what I was seeing on Google. I was seeing Lisa Smith pretty and then it was like well, podcast. So anyway, I was going to introduce you as Lisa Smith Pretty, oh thank you.

Speaker 2: 2:29

Thank you very much. It is the Pretty Well podcast. I guess they're probably just tagging my name, but hey, I'll take the compliment.

Speaker 1: 2:40

And I loved the conversation you and I had. So I'm excited to sort of continue this conversation and I'll actually set it up because I'll actually maybe. I'll just share a question I got recently and I want to see where you would go with this, because I know you and I get a lot of this kind of stuff. But the question was hey, dr Jade, I'm super interested in gut restoration and can you help me find the best bone broth to take, because I heard that's what I need for gut health and my initial thought was okay, well, that's like I'm not sure I would start with bone broth when we're talking about the gut necessarily, but I figured let's just start there.

Speaker 1: 3:23

And the reason I want to start there and open with that is because from my perspective, you know, for a long time as a naturopath you know, no one said anything about the gut I mean, I've been practicing since what I got out of school in 2004. And you know, that's when it's like all gut restoration stuff and it's been, you know. And then the last five years or so it has just been gut, gut, gut, and so it's taken a long time. And now we're hearing about all these gut protocols and everything else, and I would just love to sort of get your take on this and let's me and you talk a little bit as we get into this discussion. You know why is this important. What are people getting right or wrong about this? Do we start with bone broth, like what? What are the ways that you would begin to address, uh, this question of the gut and why it's important?

Speaker 2: 4:14

I love it. Well, first of all, thank you for having me on.

Speaker 2: 4:17

I'm really excited to be here and we're continuing the conversation. We had a great one on pretty well and now we're having another great one. So thanks for thanks for having me Um, you know, for having me. You know I love that question and it reminds me of I just had a text a week ago from a friend, friend acquaintance and he said I have a friend with severe cardiac issues. He actually has a chronic issue with his heart and he said will you please recommend some anti-inflammatory supplements for him to take? And this bone broth question reminds me of that question because you know, my head starts going cardio problem, severe.

Speaker 2: 5:03

It's kind of like gut health, gut health that you'll all, you and I are picturing all these things. And we're like bone broth, anti-inflammatory supplements. We're like, wait, yeah, those have a role to play. Maybe they're not going to hurt, most likely. But that's not where we start. We got to figure out what is going on with that gut and it's so complex. That's why you want to check with someone, work with someone who knows what they're doing, someone experienced. And I'm just going to give a little plug Always do your research, because some people are really good at marketing what they do, but maybe they don't have all the backup. So find someone who really knows the gut, but let's unpack that. So when we're talking about gut health, it impacts everything. So that's why it's such a hot topic anymore. But we want to find out.

Speaker 2: 5:55

I always like to say what are the three R's? We got to start with the three R's, and this has been used and reused in so many different ways, but the way I've always used this in practice is to foundationally address a chronic situation. We want to look at what do we need to remove? There's something causing a problem. What do we need to replace? Just low-hanging fruit deficiencies.

Speaker 2: 6:16

And then what else do we need to do for you, specifically our client, to tailor a protocol that's going to get you where you want to go. We got to figure out what is it that your body is going to work well with, not just what you know. All these online protocols say you should do. So that's where I start. Say what's going on with that gut? Is it food sensitivities? Is it toxins? Is it H pylori? Is it mold? Is it Lyme disease? So we got to do some digging first, where that dear client is going to be really disappointed if they really go full, full guns ahead with adding bone broth. They're not going to get what they need in the long run yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:59

You know one of. I love that. That idea, Right it's. It's this idea of remove, replace and then, if I'm hearing you correctly, remove, replace and find what is uniquely an issue for this person. So it's root cause, you know, sort of medicine that we're looking at, and from my perspective, I guess the the idea here with gut function is why deal with the gut in the first place? Because it is the seat of, you know, the immune system. It is a direct access into sympathetic, parasympathetic function.

Speaker 1: 7:33

So when we think about gut, I oftentimes think about, you know, okay, this is the neuroendocrine immune system, like when we think of and I want to see what you think about this as well but I tend to think of it like all right, the body is one whole holistic system, so we really cannot break it down into parts. Breaking it down into parts becomes somewhat necessary to make sense of things. But if there's one area of the body that can address the nervous system, the endocrine hormone system and the immune system all at once, the gut is certainly tops on my list. And so one of the first things I thought about was like okay, I mean, I guess if you just went on a bone broth diet and that's all you ate, right, you know, so it's essentially bone broth fasting. Well then you would have removed a lot of things, right? I don't know that you're going to replace anything, but you will have removed a lot of things.

Speaker 1: 8:27

And it oftentimes makes me think that when people go on some of these quote protocols where they're reducing any type of food, whether they're a vegetarian, it's going, you know, keto, or whether they're keto, it's going, you know, you know, you know low fat and sort of high vegetable Usually when any of these diets at least the popular ones you're removing one or more types of foods that could be irritants. And I think that's perhaps where things like, oh, I'll take bone broth, get these sort of reputations, because I think what happens is a practitioner goes, hey, remove all these foods, oh, and then, you know, make sure you take some bone broth as well. And people give all the sort of benefits in their mind go to bone broth when it really was what you're talking about largely the elimination of all these potential causative foods that are causing irritation. But I wonder what your sort of thought on that. And then I want to impact, or at least unpack, rather, how we might give someone a protocol for the gut that really does address their unique needs.

Speaker 2: 9:34

Yeah, yeah. So with the bone broth, yeah, to take it to the next step I think I was looking at it with just adding bone broth in to what they're already doing and thinking, well, it's kind of a Band-Aid maybe.

Speaker 2: 9:47

Same yeah doing and thinking, well, it's kind of a bandaid maybe. Yeah, but then if we went really restrictive and just then did kind of a bone broth fast, it's still not going to get that person where they want to get. Yeah, what I find tell me what you've found with the elimination diet. I find that we can eliminate a vast majority of foods that can be causing a problem for that person, but we're also eliminating ones just by default. We're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Speaker 2: 10:22

I'm a dietician by training and trade and you know so I don't like restriction. I don't like throwing all the foods out if they don't have to be. So I don't like restriction. I don't like throwing all the foods out if they don't have to be. I find that I prefer, over the years, what I've learned. This has evolved, but I really love a food sensitivity test called MRT mediator release test reacting. It's not just IgG, it's not just a particular antibody, right? It's looking at white blood cells. How is the immune system reacting to these foods 170 different foods and additives. And what I love about that is what I found before I used that Jade was that I would only get so far and I would always be missing something and I'll use myself as an example.

Speaker 2: 11:12

I eat pretty healthily. I prepare most of the foods at home. I'm kind of picky about all that stuff and I knew I was sensitive to gluten. I knew that and I knew I had some other sensitivities nightshades and that kind of thing but I wasn't quite making progress with my Hashimoto's. The way I found that I'm sensitive to onion, garlic and lemon Guess what I ate every day. Yeah, onion, garlic and lemon. So that helped me to get to a new level of understanding and progress. So when we're eliminating, I'd much rather do a targeted approach and say, okay, I may need to knock out garlic, onion and lemon for you, but guess what? You do okay on some of these other foods that we thought maybe you didn't do okay on, so we can leave those in. What would you?

Speaker 1: 12:04

yeah, I'm curious, what would you say to someone who said well, you're reacting to. You know what is it onion, garlic and lemons, because you eat those all the time. And then if we add in other foods, you know you're going to start reacting to those Certainly the time. And then if we add in other foods, you know you're going to start reacting to those Certainly. That's where we see some of the issues with IgG, this particular test I'm interested in because I'm wondering what else are they measuring to determine this? And then also, of course, the proof is in the pudding, right. So if they guide you to eliminate these and then you eliminate them and things start to clear up, symptoms start to clear up, that's an indication. That was the right move.

Speaker 2: 12:37

Right, I, I, you know, when I first started it it's you go through this whole certification to even be able to run this test. It's a blood test and I was I was kind of skeptical, thinking boy. I hope it's getting the results I want. I have truly found it to be life-changing. Anyone who's taken it they're like what? Because the way we work it with an MRT is it gives you your, you know, it breaks those 170 items down into categories and then it gives you green foods, yellow foods, red foods, so you build that initial protocol and those initial couple months out of these green foods that are safe. So you're already doing some healing.

Speaker 2: 13:18

So, to your point, if we have leaky gut and I love to explain it in this one way I'll explain what that is in just a sec but if we have leaky gut, then the foods we do eat more often tend to become triggers for our body because they're causing inflammation. And so the way I like to picture leaky gut, because people hear about it and they're like what is that? I've heard of it, I don't know what it is I say picture your digestive system as a hose that runs from your mouth to your butt. It's just a hose like your garden hose, and you just went out to Lowe's or Home Depot, bought yourself a brand new garden hose. It's the beginning of summer, we're watering the garden, we're watering the lawn Beautiful new hose.

Speaker 2: 14:02

And you went to sleep tonight and your little neighbor boy next door. He has had bratty behavior in the past. Well, he got out and he starts poking holes in your brand new hose little tiny pinholes. You can't see them until you turn on the spigot. And now you're still watering your lawn and your garden, but you see these little leaks springing up. Well, that's what I like to picture for leaky gut. Those little leaks are allowing microscopic particles of the food you ate. They're not broken down enough to be the proper fuel for you to make energy out of. They're broken down enough to be microscopic, but they're not in the right place. Yet those start springing through and your immune system goes oh wait, oh no, this doesn't belong here. What is this? And it starts to build antibodies and it starts to fight those foods, leading to inflammation when you eat them. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 14:58

Yeah, and there's other things that are going on in the gut as well. So for the listener, first step when we're talking about gut function is remove, right, and let's just continue to unpack this a little bit so you can do this through testing. So Lisa's taught telling you about, you know, the MRT test. You can do it that way. You also can just simply remove suspected foods, and we used to do this very early on in my career. What we do is we would remove everything, depending on how severe it is. We'd even get down to and don't ask me why the lamb and pear diet. This is for extreme, extreme food reactivities. We would literally reduce everything down to essentially lamb and pear because those were believed to be the least hypoallergenic. Now today we can have elemental diets, so we don't have to go that extreme. But then what we would do is start adding things back and then looking for reactions, and we'd wait about four days before that would happen, being careful not to add highly, highly allergenic foods all at once. For example, pizza has gluten, it has an adjuvant of tomato, it has dairy, so that would be sort of nightshades gluten and dairy all at once, and so we would separate all these foods out.

Speaker 1: 16:08

Now this new kind of testing hopefully allows us to find specific foods that are problematic and or at least point out and correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, lisa. I just want to make sure that the listener follows, but at least point out if there is a leaky gut situation. For example, if there is a leaky gut situation, you might see on this particular test, lots and lots of foods, rather than a few specific. There might be a ton of foods which tells us there's this leaky gut situation which then would be impinging on you know we talked about the neuroendocrine immune system impinging on the immune system in a way that is causing inflammatory reactions, and so this removal phase can be done in several different ways just removing certain foods and then seeing if you feel better, removing certain foods and then slowly adding foods back to see if you get reactions.

Speaker 1: 19:40

And or doing a test like the MRT or something like that and using that as your guide to remove. So I'm curious what are the symptoms then that normally will clear up when we know we have done this right? So when you see in your clinic, what are the things that people could look for, to, kind of, is it going to be simply gas and bloating? Is it going to be skin stuff? Is it going to be other things that we're looking to clear up, because I imagine it's not just remove and then sit there and wait, but it's also like, clinically, will we see things begin to get better?

Speaker 2: 20:14

We do. However, we choose to do that elimination, whether it's the way you said and a lot of times people do have really good intuition They'll say you know, every time I eat X, fill in X, right, Every time I eat gluten through pasta, pizza, sandwiches, I get really bloated and I feel really gross and then I'm irregular. You know, my bathroom habits are irregular. It could be anything but. But you're right. If someone I always do say, if you're not ready to run the MRT, if you have a gut feeling, pun intended if you have a gut feeling that certain foods don't agree with you, let's knock them out and see what happens. But it's going to depend on the person, right? So if someone comes in to you or me, to the clinic and complaining about digestive, that's what we always think.

Speaker 2: 21:05

We always think it's going to be bloating, gas, stomach pain, constipation, diarrhea, either one or alternating. Sometimes it is patient diarrhea, either one or alternating, Sometimes it is, but sometimes, as you said, it's rashes, it's joint pain, fatigue, brain fog, hair loss. It can be things that we never put together with a gut issue. It could be mood imbalances. I've seen research and I've seen it also with clients where gluten in particular I'm not picking on gluten, because there are so many other foods that are sensitive for people, but where gluten in particular has caused brain imbalances and mood imbalances, so where people feel like, oh my goodness, am I bipolar, what's going on? And there's research that backs this up. When we wipe that out of the diet, very often those symptoms improve. So it could be a whole host of different things gut related off the top of our heads or not.

Speaker 1: 22:09

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting, reminds me of you know, and this is there's lots of different ways that, just for you all listening. There's casomorphins casein, the protein in dairy, can form casomorphin, which morphine right, it can have impact on nervous system function, including mood Glutomorphins as well from gluten. And it's really interesting, lisa, I just saw a little thing of an Italian chef who was basically showing American pasta versus Italian pasta Because, believe it or not, a lot of people will report this and I actually have had this happen in my family. I'm not gluten sensitive or react to gluten, but some of my family members do, and we went to Italy years back. They had some pasta because you're in Italy, right, and they're just like, well, I'm here, they have the best possible to eat it, and they did not react to it, which you know was interesting. And, of course, me and my brother are both naturopathic doctors and our sister-in-law also is a naturopathic doctor. So one of the things we were like well, you know, you got lots of different. You know things that they do differently.

Speaker 1: 23:22

Number one Italy doesn't use Roundup as much as we do in some of glyphosate and other things, but they also process their pasta differently.

Speaker 1: 23:25

It's less processed and this particular skit that this Italian was showing is he was showing you know, look at the processing that American pasta goes through, look how much harder it is, look how much longer it needs to be cooked, like all the things.

Speaker 1: 23:34

So it oftentimes makes me wonder that oftentimes it's maybe, perhaps not necessarily just gluten, but also, you know, gluten that has been sprayed with glyphosate, gluten that has been overly processed, etc. So there's a lot that goes into this that we don't know, but I agree with you as well this can oftentimes, when it's there, it can be a godsend, you know. So removing is critical, and it's about as close as we can get to root cause, right, and so I guess now we can say, all right, well, let's talk a little bit about then this replace aspect, because you, you know, you said it well, you know, you're a, you're a nutritionist, and so the last thing you want to do is remove things, and I think this is really astute of you and very important. So you're removing things you need to heal, and then you're removing things and yes, though, you're also removing lots of good quality nutrients and things that the body might need to heal, and so then we're sort of replacing things. What would we be replacing?

Speaker 2: 24:34

Right things. What would we be replacing, right? So back to your point there, not only are we removing potentially necessary nutrients, but we're also causing more restriction. And when we cause more restriction, that can impact patient compliance. Where they say I'm done Like I'm done, I've done this for a month, I'm sick of not being able to. I feel like I can't eat anything. I'm taking these supplements. So as much as we can make this process doable and less disruptive to someone's day, then the longer they can stay on this healing journey and really see results then the better they feel. Then that starts to change everything. That becomes that snowball effect.

Speaker 2: 28:28

So when I talk about replace, I talk about what's the low-hanging fruit For instance you mentioned. Someone might be a vegetarian. If they're a vegetarian, we know off the cuff. We don't even have to do testing unless they're supplementing very intentionally. We've got B vitamin deficiencies. We've got protein deficiencies, amino acid deficiencies. We have some very clear deficiencies. Another really low hanging fruit is the majority of us and the numbers will vary depending on the research you look at but the majority of us are deficient in magnesium, really hard to get from our food. So this is some low-hanging fruit that if you're deficient in B vitamins and magnesium. Now you've impacted detoxification, energy production, methylation which is part of detoxification, and so many other things. You've impacted all these very critical pathways in your body, these biochemical pathways that really have to do with health, energy, mitochondrial function, avoidance of chronic disease, healing, all of those things.

Speaker 1: 29:33

Yeah, and I'll add a couple of other things as well, right? So if we're listening to Lisa, we're talking about okay, so make sure the B vitamins are there 100%, make sure you got magnesium and other things, and I think this is something that's oftentimes overlooked, because a lot of times people will remove and feel horrible if they don't do a good job, uh, replacing, and so I also do like to add in good quality protein, um, and good quality. You know nutrition and I like I do. Going back to the bone broth thing, I thought that was a kind of an interesting question and you know, not something I agree with you. I wouldn't be like, hey, bone broth's first on my list or even 10th on my list, but one of the things I do like to do, especially with people who have, you know, like I've worked a lot with IBD, irritable bowel, I'm sorry inflammatory bowel disease, crohn's and ulcerative colitis, and with these types of people you also need to get very gentle with the nutrition that you do. So I like mainly very nutrient-dense soups and stews and things like that, well-cooked foods, simple foods like that.

Speaker 1: 30:38

But then we also can replace things like digestive enzymes, so digestive function, and one of the interesting things is and I'm interested if you use this as well but there's been some interesting research showing adding in digestive enzymes for people who don't eliminate and are consuming the foods that they're sensitive to, and just adding in digestive enzymes can dramatically decrease and or eliminate symptoms from people who are eating foods that they are sensitive to, which would make some sense.

Speaker 1: 31:07

But one of the things you also want to begin to do in the replace phase is replace some of the things that people might be missing that might be compromising their ability to break down foods, and so from my perspective, this would be replacing digestive enzymes and stuff like that. So I'm wondering what you think about that and I'm also wondering obviously we would be remiss if we didn't talk about the idea of probiotics, because a lot of people would put that sort of in the replace or they might call it repopulate. You know phase of a gut restoration, but there are supplements that we could use to replace. You mentioned the B vitamins, you mentioned magnesium. I'm mentioning digestive enzymes, perhaps probiotics, anything else that you feel like is important for us to mention for them in the replace aspect of gut.

Speaker 2: 31:57

Yeah, you know, it's so funny when you brought enzymes up. I have a core three. If I'm starting from scratch, my core three would be digestive enzymes, a very good activated B-complex and that's important, the form of B-complex is so important and then the right form of magnesium. That's going to depend on the person whether they're regular, they go to the bathroom regularly or not. We would switch the forms. You know, glycinate versus citrate versus something else. Those are my three pillars, if you will.

Speaker 2: 32:31

I love the idea of probiotics and that again is going to. I usually customize that If I like a general just off the cuff. I love Saccharomyces boulardii. It's great for post-antibiotic, it's shelf-stable, it's just universal. It really helps from a universal standpoint. So those would be my top three. If we're talking with inflammation, I also like a form of omega-3s or SPMs. If you're familiar with SPMs, those are a concentrated form of omega-3 that is really anti-inflammatory, and then after that I start to customize it. Those are some of the basics.

Speaker 2: 33:14

Now, one thing that I do find is really important when we're talking about digestive enzymes is I tend to prefer for people with gut problems, I do tend to prefer enzymes with betaine, and betaine helps to produce more hydrochloric acid and break down proteins. Now if there are any ulcers if anyone's ever had a history of stomach ulcers or anything like in the IBD realm that you were talking about ulcerative colitis, anything like that then I avoid the betaine. And the other time I avoid it is if they have an active overgrowth of H pylori, an H pylori infection, because H pylori shuts down your stomach acid and when you add an agent that helps you to produce more, it sends H pylori deeper into the stomach tissues, causing more problems. So you know, those are some caveats where I don't tend to use betaine, but otherwise I like that because it really improves that digestion.

Speaker 1: 34:16

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting, right, and this gets into as, as you all are listening, you can start to hear how different practitioners begin to tailor their treatment based on what are some of the things that you know people are dealing with. You wouldn't want to pour hydrochloric acid into someone who has a stomach ulcer, and what you might want to do with H pylori is first use certain forms of zinc and other things to begin to help the health of that gut lining to become better before you add it in HCL. So there's a whole way and I really like that we're getting into this discussion, because I think a lot of people what they're doing and I can get your take on this too, lisa, but what they're doing is what I would call recipe-based, protocol-based functional medicine, which isn't necessarily bad. Right Now we're hearing all the stuff I'm on such and such doctor's protocol or I'm using such and such doctor's protocol, and from my perspective, that's not a bad thing. Necessarily, many people will do well on that, but also many people will be missed, because protocols will cause many practitioners and many people to just think oh, it's as simple as baking a cake. You add some flour here, you add some sugar, here you add some eggs and it always comes out as this wonderful cake. And in functional medicine we are all so different, and so I think it's really important that you listeners pay attention to what Lisa is saying about this sort of nuance, about what we put in. So we might have a general protocol, but this protocol is tweaked and adjusted and added to and subtracted from based on the particular person. And one thing I'll say here too, lisa, is in regard to that I would be remiss if I didn't say this and jump in here to, if you also want to say something on this, just for the education of the listener.

Speaker 1: 36:07

When I think of gut stuff and a lot of gut symptoms, especially when it comes along with lots of digestive stuff but also lots of aching in the body, you know that feeling where you you go out with friends, get a pizza or whatever you wake up the next day you feel like you know you're aching all over your body. There's also something with the gut lipopolysaccharide or endotoxin, what we might call metabolic endotoxemia that many people are dealing with. That is not a food sensitivity or a food reaction per se. It is actually a situation with gram negative bacteria building up and also higher fat diets that essentially push this into the system and you almost LPS. Endotoxin is something that the immune system highly reacts to, almost like a flu, and so you can feel very achy in that regard as well.

Speaker 1: 36:57

And in that particular case then we would. You know, in my way of looking at this, you might actually remove high fat diets from this and high sugar diets to avoid this sort of gram negative LPS effect, sugar diets to avoid this sort of gram negative LPS effect. And there are certain types of bacteria that you would add in to reduce LPS as well. And the only reason I bring that up is that you're sort of telling us to hey, let's make sure that we take the individual and adjust things to them, and a lot of physicians, this whole issue with LPS would get not necessarily addressed if you're just doing protocol based stuff. So I don't know if you have anything you know to add there.

Speaker 2: 37:38

But so much to add, especially when you're talking LPS and you're talking about, you know it's the role that a high fat diet plays in exacerbating that condition. Think about the person who does the recipe-based protocol. That, and this is why, in the very beginning, I said, make sure, depending on what you're looking for help with that you find the right person who has the experience, who has the education and who knows how to customize it. Because how many people Jade, come to you and they've been put on a keto diet, right, and they're like I'm doing a keto diet and you're like, well, okay, how's that working? Like why are you here? And that would be the opposite of what that person would need.

Speaker 2: 38:31

What I see sometimes in functional medicine, where it doesn't live up to its name. So functional medicine, true functional medicine is root cause medicine and there's never a root cause. It's what are the root causes? Right? There are multiple things going on, because the human body is so incredibly miraculous and complicated that it's not just one thing and we clear that up.

Speaker 2: 38:54

Typically, there's some other things you know that complicate that. But you know we look at that and you call it a recipe based approach and I call it just like conventional medicine it's a pill for an ill. If we go with a blanket protocol, as you said, it can be helpful, especially if we're talking about, maybe, a Lyme disease, maybe a mold protocol. Again, we got to tweak it and customize it, but there's some good to be gleaned from that. But if we're going with a pill for an ill but we're just using supplements instead of medications, we're still not meeting the needs of that individual very well, where true root cause medicine does take the individual in and say you know what, you are so unique and we're going to figure this out together and we're going to help you get better.

Speaker 1: 39:43

Yeah, a hundred percent, all right. So now we've got sort of the remove phase, we've got sort of the replace phase, which we covered, sort of repopulate within that as well, you know giving probiotics, and now we can talk about the idea of regeneration or sort of bringing back the health of the gut. And I'll start us off here and then see where you want to go with this. But you know, from my perspective there's lots of different things that we could do here. What we're talking about is we're really talking about this gut lining and the immune system. It's really about what do we do to make the gut lining healthy and what do we do to help the immune system, and one of my favorite ones is glutamine, and I usually do that across the board.

Speaker 1: 40:28

Anyway, glutamine is a really interesting compound. Is not, believe it or not, for you listeners? There's actually not a lot of good research on glutamine in general. Actually, I would say that glutamine, though, is probably one of the most useful supplements I've ever used in my clinical practice. Clinically, that does not have a lot of science backing it up, which is a really interesting thing. There's a ton of science with glutamine, with burn victims and people in highly stressed states taking glutamine and having it be highly effective, which is why it tells you a little bit about how important it is. But especially for the gut, I love glutamine and I'd love to see if Lisa agrees or disagrees with this. But that, to me, is one of the things that I love, and the reason I love glutamine is because it is an amino acid that tastes pretty good.

Speaker 1: 41:17

You can get glutamine powder. Put it right in your water. People are very compliant with it. It also tends to give people some good quality energy. It's great for the gut lining and it's great for the immune system. So I'm wondering what your thought is about glutamine and I'm also wondering what your thought is about other things that you would be using to help regenerate sort of the tissue, make the tissue healthier, make the immune system. You know more in that Goldilocks zone. You know. Effective enough, but not overly active.

Speaker 2: 41:46

Yeah, I love glutamine. It's my number one gut healer. It's number one. I love it. It's soothing, it's fuel for your gut cells. It helps to rebuild and replace and replenish and feed the cells in your intestines. I use it all the time. In fact I was using it so when I spent time in dietetic training in the hospital.

Speaker 2: 42:17

L-glutamine and L-arginine are the key, not only for burn victims, which it's very good for, but any kind of post-surgical healing bed sores, diabetic ulcers those are so healing. And you think about the skin, if you will, that lines our gastrointestinal tract. It's skin. In a sense it's one cell thick. It's very easily damaged, but L-glutamine helps to go and heal that right away and it soothes it. So I love that and I love that in combination. There's some excellent products that combine the proper dosage of L-glutamine with zinc, carnosine, slippery marshmallow root, some aloe. You get that. That's a powerhouse. You start getting that in once or twice a day.

Speaker 2: 43:03

I just took L-glutamine before we got on here today. It's really funny. I was using a little bit for healing a month ago for healing something and I forgot about it. And then last week I was like you know, my gut's been acting up and I thought I just abruptly stopped that L-glutamine so I started it right back again. So I really love those products for gut healing and those are my number one go-to and I buy them in combination.

Speaker 2: 43:30

It saves money. That way people aren't taking five different things at one time and it tastes good. Like you said, a lot of times you'll find it raspberry flavored or whatever, and it's naturally flavored and all that. I also like, again, specific prebiotics, but then I also like or probiotics, but I also like prebiotics, right, the fiber. That's the food for the probiotics, the food for the good bacteria, to keep the good bacteria flourishing and knocking back some of the bad bacteria in the gut. And then a couple of things that I really, really like. I like short chain fatty acids, you know butyrate. I like that as well for gut repopulate. You know replenishing. And I like Tudka. Do you use Tudka for anything?

Speaker 1: 44:14

No, I don't Tell us about Tudka.

Speaker 2: 44:16

Tudka is this compound that helps you to. It helps you to replenish your bile. So your liver makes the bile and then the gallbladder stores it right, but it can get kind of gunky, Just like in your car when you need an oil change it gets kind of gunky. Same idea you need an oil change so we need to replenish that bile, or it just doesn't seem to work as well. It doesn't help us emulsify fats, it doesn't help us pull toxins out. That's really key. Well, Tudka helps to replenish. Tudka is liver loving. It goes in and it loves your liver. But it helps your liver to replenish bile, which helps you to get kind of that sludge out of the liver, the gall bladder, and replenish that. So it helps with digestion. It helps with gut health, it pulls out toxins, but it also crosses the blood brain barrier, so it helps with cognitive function. It's very bitter and you think about bitter herbs are being the best for your liver. It's very bitter Even when you take those capsules. You're like what is that? But it's amazing.

Speaker 1: 45:22

Yeah, yeah, it reminds me like when you know again getting specific about you know people having specific issues for women in particular, and estrogen metabolism bile is critical, right. So something like Tutka and then something like calcium D glucurate or other things that you can add in that are specific to a detox of hormones and estrogen and things like that. And so I think when we talk about gut, I really liked this discussion because what we're talking about is if you followed sort of this discussion, at least in our heaven is, if you followed sort of this discussion at least and I are having there's this kind of structure of you know this typical it's the four or five are, depending on you know, or three are. Everyone has a different you know set of ours, but we went through several, right. It's like remove, replace, change, repopulate, regenerate, right. We went through that whole thing, but within that is where the specifics for the person began to come in, and so I really love the idea of, like you know, cookbook medicine.

Speaker 1: 46:27

Cookbook medicine can be useful in terms of the structure, but it's not useful in terms of the flexibility or the individuality. So I would just say to all you individuals who are interested in this kind of stuff that you stop and go. Okay, a protocol in itself can maybe get us in the ballpark, but it's not going to be as effective unless it is individualized, and that becomes critical. And you can even see. Lisa even pointed us to certain areas where, if you just followed certain protocols off the shelf, some of them can cause some issues for certain people if they're not aware of those. And so let's begin to wrap up, lisa. And what else would you say? People need to to know about a gut function and how else, you know, might it impact them or anything else you really want to say.

Speaker 2: 47:32

And you know, for people to a lot of this. If you've worked with a practitioner or practitioners and you've done a lot and you still haven't made progress, probably something's missing. And then we want to look at toxins. What's going on in there, mm-hmm? So if you've done all this work and you're frustrated, it doesn't mean that all the things you've done are likely quite beneficial. It's just you haven't quite gotten to, maybe, the tap root yet.

Speaker 2: 48:00

And so often I find that hidden toxins can really cause a lot of heartache, because people can do all the things and spend all the money on the clinicians, the practitioners, the supplements, the testing. But it's important to stay persistent and keep looking because it could be something hidden, like there might be mold and there might be mycotoxins that are totally invisible. If you've got any water damage, it could be something like that. You could have gotten a tick bite that you just didn't know, you know, and there could be some Lyme or a co-infection going on. You know it could be heavy metals. You could have some heavy metal toxicity. So keep digging and stay persistent because healing is in your path and it's coming.

Speaker 2: 48:42

So that's the first thing, and the second thing is that we hinted at but we didn't do a lot of and you really hinted at when you were talking about the neuroendocrine, hormonal gut connection and that is. You know it's so trite. All health begins in the gut but, honestly, when we're talking about female hormones it goes back to the gut and blood sugar balance and getting that all straightened out. Cognitive difficulties often go back to the gut. Mood imbalances often go back to the gut. Generalized fatigue, pain, malaysia or malaise, malaysia, malaise.

Speaker 1: 49:21

I'm getting so passionate now I'm like spewing out words that don't make any sense.

Speaker 2: 49:27

It often goes back to the gut. So let's get the. I like to keep it the three R's, because so many protocols are. You're right, four or five, but they're hard to remember. But if someone says, okay, I got to remove things, I got to replace things, I got to restore whatever's left, which means customize it to me Easy to remember. I know that's a path that makes sense. So that's, you know, I keep it to three. But those are two of the big things I would point out as we wrap up.

Speaker 1: 49:52

Yeah and I got a couple and maybe you want to, you can comment on this as well Like one of the things I think I love. I love this idea of kind of looking at and saying you know, these are, you know, when we have these things, that we just don't feel well it's, you know, we do need to be aware of the gut. We do need to be aware of other exposures and things like that. And, as it pertains to foods in particular, one of the things that I oftentimes like to think about if we're going to just play, you know, just gross removal type stuff. There are foods that people tend to consume on a regular basis, like coffee being one of them. Let's say that they don't even think about necessarily as food or having an effect, and coffee is a very heavily sprayed crop, by the way. I love coffee. I probably drink three, four cups of coffee on most days, but there. But I also just wanted to make people, you know, aware of this as well. We don't want to be neurotic Coffee, in the research, is incredibly healthy for the vast majority of people, and there are differences here fast oxidizers of coffee versus slow oxidizers and different differences, but coffee also can be another one of these hidden things where it can have mycotoxins in it, it can be heavily sprayed.

Speaker 1: 51:05

It's something to keep in mind there. And then another thing is just, you know, if you were to ask me, hey, Jade, you know, I got you in the elevator for two minutes and you were like, what one thing could I remove from my diet that might make the biggest difference for me? Refined and simple processed grains, and perhaps grains in general, partly because they do tend to be the ones that will also be the most heavily sprayed. They typically are going to be in the most junk food. They are typically going to be in the most junk food. They are typically going to have issues for a lot of people in terms of blood sugar levels, feeding the wrong gut bacteria and these kinds of things. And so the only reason I'm bringing that up is that it is true that some of these big ideas can fix a lot of issues. However, if you really want to get down to what is your issue, you want to get a little bit more specific of that.

Speaker 1: 52:00

Just because eliminating grains this is how it works just because eliminating grains can help 30, 40% of people feel better, does not mean that everyone needs to eliminate grains and then everyone should be on the keto diet or carnivore diet now, and the only reason I'm bringing that up is because that's where people's heads tend to go. One of the things that we're going to see and I'll let you comment on this as our final thing, Lisa but one of the things you're all going to begin to see, that's you know, you saw it, it's already incredibly popular, but to me it's going to be the next quote fad diet, and from my perspective, fad diets oftentimes work for a lot of people and for most people they won't. But the carnivore diet is the next one. Why do people feel so good on the carnivore diet? Likely because it's eliminating a ton of grains.

Speaker 1: 52:47

So this is kind of the thing that people want to be aware of. But I can tell you this in my clinical practice usually these things will work for 30 percent of the people at best. Another 30 percent are going to be like no different and there functional medicine where it's like now everyone's got to do this diet. No, maybe 30 percent will get great results, Maybe 30,. You know, another 60 percent are either not going to get results from it or feel horrible on it. So that's sort of my sort of final take on this and I think if we all get a little bit more careful with the messaging about what works for us and trying to say it's going to work for everybody, we'll all be a little bit better off.

Speaker 2: 53:40

Yeah, yeah, and there's. We could go on for a while. You bring up processed food. I do agree with you If we were going to make a blanket statement and say, hey, do you want to bring down inflammation? I'll give you the top three ways to do that right this minute. You don't have to buy anything. You get rid of processed foods, especially grains. You get rid of seed oils All seed oils, stick with extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil and some grass-fed butter or ghee. And you get rid of sugars and artificial sweeteners. You get rid of those. Your inflammation is going to come way down if you're eating a good bit of those.

Speaker 2: 54:13

And then to your point about the carnivore or any fad diet even for the 30% it works, for if they stick with it long-term they're going to wreck gut diversity, which is what's protecting us from chronic disease. So it can work in the short term, like you said, because we're getting the processed grains, the processed foods, the sugars and the seed oils out if we do a specific fad diet like that typically. But then we're wrecking our diversity, which is what we get from plant foods. So even if we went all vegetarian, then we're still wrecking our building blocks for our proteins right and our bodies run on protein. So I just caution anyone about I you know, I'll make this very quick as we wrap up.

Speaker 2: 54:56

Years ago, when low fat was a fad and it was a fad for a very long time I gained a lot of weight after college and I said I'm going to do this low fat thing and I did it. Like you couldn't believe, jade, I gave up all fat. Well, you know, fast forward years and I hurt my hormones, I hurt my thyroid. That was one big piece of that. It wasn't the only piece, but it was a significant piece. So I caution people against anything that's super restrictive, but I love that you've given listeners the listeners today just this great framework of. Here are some key things you can take away today and do. But if you're dealing with something chronic, make sure you get someone who's going to help you dial that in and really tailor it to you.

Speaker 1: 55:41

Yeah, 100%, lisa Smith. Thank you so much. For those of you who want to follow Lisa, I follow her on Instagram. Right, You're on Instagram prettywell underscore podcast you got it Prettywell underscore podcast. That's Lisa's handle and the Prettywell podcast is her podcast. Where else can they find you, Lisa, online?

Speaker 2: 56:05

Jade, I just sold my functional medicine business to an amazing functional medicine MD, so I'm thrilled about that, and I'm in the middle of a move from Pennsylvania to South Carolina, so I got a couple balls in there. As I get settled in South Carolina, I will be starting a business again, but my previous business was called Integrative Wellness Center and that's where everyone found me. Now it'll be Lisa Smith Wellness.

Speaker 1: 56:32

Yeah, so Lisa Smith Wellness coming soon. She's actually moving closer to me, so hopefully I'll get a chance to hang with her, but I really appreciate it. Actually, this is one of the better. I've been wanting to do one on gut stuff for a while now. So thank you so much for being so generous, walking us through this and more to come, and just do me a favor and hang on the line so I can make sure this uploads. And for all of you, thank you for hanging out with me and Lisa, and we will see you at the next show.

Speaker 2: 57:01

Thank you.