Episode 7 - Foundational Supplements for Gut Health

This transcription is a podcast episode about the importance of gut health and the role of probiotics in managing inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The host emphasizes the functions of the gut, including digestion, nutrient absorption, immune system support, and inflammation regulation. Probiotics are highlighted as crucial for balancing the gut microbiome, strengthening the gut barrier, modulating the immune system, producing short-chain fatty acids, and inhibiting pathogens. Specific probiotic strains beneficial for IBD are mentioned, along with the importance of choosing evidence-based strains, considering colony forming units (CFUs), and selecting quality brands from reputable sources. The host advises consulting a healthcare professional and suggests testing to determine the most effective probiotic regimen. Is your gut ready for a makeover? Discover the power of natural supplements for IBD relief and beyond. Are you tired of battling gut health issues and not knowing where to turn? Whether you're dealing with IBD or just looking to boost your overall wellness, this episode is your go-to guide for unlocking the power of foundational supplements. We'll dive into the must-have natural remedies that can transform your gut health, ease inflammation, and get you back to feeling your best without all the guesswork. So tune in and take the first step toward a happier, healthier gut. Hey there, busy entrepreneurs. I'm Wendy Handy and you're tuned in to Gut Fix. It's your ultimate guide to conquering IBD, fatigue, chronic stress, and reclaiming your vitality. Get ready to unlock a treasure trove of insights from diet hacks to stress relief strategies and dive deep into the fascinating world of how hormones affect your gut health. It's all about decoding the messages your body sends. You can bid farewell to IBD and digestive issues for good. Take a breather from the hustle and bustle. Let's give your gut a high five and together, let's embark on this transformative journey. Are you ready? Let's dive into today's episode. Welcome back to another episode where we're talking about the foundational supplements for gut health. The gut plays a central role in your overall health and well-being. It's responsible for not only digesting food, but also for absorbing your nutrients and eliminating waste. And then beyond these functions, the gut is the home to trillions of microorganisms that form your gut microbiome. That influences your immune function, your metabolism, and even your mood and your mental health. So maintaining gut health is essential for a lot of reasons. Like I said, for supporting your immune system, 70% of your immune system is located in the gut. So that makes it a critical player in defending the body against pathogens and maintaining that immune balance. And so a healthy gut microbiome can enhance your immune responses and help you fight off bacteria and pathogens and things like that and reduce inflammation, which, of course, is particularly important for those with IBD. Then the nutrient absorbent. So a healthy gut ensures that you not only are digesting properly, but you are absorbing the essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that are so vital for maintaining your energy levels, tissue repair, and just, again, your overall health. And then inflammation regulation. So the gut microbiome produces short-chain fatty acids that help regulate inflammation. And a balanced gut can prevent excessive inflammation, which we know is the hallmark of IBD. And then the barrier function. So your intestinal barrier function, the gut lining, it acts as a barrier to help prevent harmful substances like bacteria, pathogens, even undigested food from entering into the bloodstream. So maintaining that gut integrity is crucial for preventing leaky gut. And leaky gut can exacerbate IBD symptoms and trigger immune responses. So, again, just an overview of what IBD is. And so it's that term inflammatory bowel disease. It encompasses the two primary chronic conditions, which are Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. And both diseases involve inflammation of the digestive tract, but differ in what specific characteristics they have and the areas of the digestive tract that it affects. And so the core supplements for gut health are, you know, you want to look at a good, the number one is a good probiotic. And probiotics are, they're live microorganisms. They provide numerous health benefits when they're consumed in enough amounts, in the adequate amounts. They play a crucial role in maintaining your gut health because they help balance that gut microbiome. And that's essential for, you know, for IBD. And so an in-depth look at the role of probiotics. So the role of probiotics, not only in gut health, is to balance your gut microbiome. So they help restore the natural balance of your gut bacteria. And when that's disrupted, it can be disrupted by things like antibiotics, a poor diet, standard American diet, we call it the SAD diet, and even chronic stress. And this balance is, it's crucial for your overall health and to help reduce inflammation associated with IBD. The second role of a probiotic is to enhance your gut barrier function. So they will help, probiotics will help strengthen that gut barrier or that gut lining, which again prevents those harmful substances like the bacteria, the pathogens, and those food particles from entering into the bloodstream, which can then cause chronic stress. And then the third role of a probiotic is to modulate that immune system. So by influencing the immune system, it's interacting with the gut lymphoid tissue. It promotes that healthy immune response, and it potentially reduces the autoimmune reactions. And then the fourth reason is that it produces short-chain fatty acids. And certain probiotic strains produce short-chain fatty acids, which provide energy to your colon and its cells, which then also reduces inflammation and supports that gut lining once again. And then the fifth reason is that it inhibits pathogens. So it prevents infections and helps promote that healthy microbiome. So what are the most beneficial probiotic strains for IBD? Because I don't know about you, but if you've been into your local health food store lately, there is, I mean, you could fill a whole store with probiotics, just probiotics alone. And you really don't know unless you know what you're looking for and what you should be taking. So some of the strains that are very beneficial for IBD are lactobacillus remnesis. And that's a strain that's been very well researched and known for its ability to enhance your gut barrier function, to reduce inflammation, and to relieve those symptoms of IBD. And then lactobacillus plantarum, it helps reduce bloating, which is often one of the symptoms and discomforts of IBD. And it also helps improve that intestinal permeability or that gut lining again. Bifidobacterium bifidum, I know these are a mouthful. You don't really have to remember them all, but known for its ability to support the immune system and improve, again, that gut mucosal barrier. It's beneficial for maintaining overall intestinal health. And then a different type of bifidobacterium lactis is it aids in helping with the digestion and helps the immune response. And it can help you reduce those symptoms of IBD. Saccharomyces boulardii, it's technically a yeast, but it does have probiotic benefits and properties to it that can help prevent diarrhea and reduce inflammation in the gut. And then VSL number three, that contains a mixture of eight different strains of live lactic acid bacteria, which they promote a balanced gut microbiome. And so by introducing and maintaining high levels of VSL number three, they can help harmful bacteria by promoting that healthy gut environment. It also, again, once again, which is so important, it supports that mucosal barrier and prevents leaky gut and it helps moderate the immune system. So when you're looking to choose the right probiotic, I can't stress this enough that you need to look for the evidence-based strains like the ones I just mentioned above. And also, you know, depending on what you're looking for, are you looking for reducing inflammation? Are you looking for improving your digestion or your overall immune function? So they're all going to have different benefits to them. So knowing which ones is critical. And the only real reason or the only real way to find that out is to test and have a stool lab run on you to find out exactly what it is you're missing and what you would benefit from the most. And you want to look for when you're looking for a probiotic is for the colony forming units or the CFUs. If you've ever noticed, it will have the number of CFUs on it. And if you're looking for, and that's the number of live microorganisms, by the way. And if you're looking to tame down a flare for therapeutic purposes, you want to look for the probiotic that has at least 10 to 50 billion CFUs. And when I was at my worst, I was at 100 billion CFUs. So, you know, for, you know, calming a flare, you definitely want 10 to 50 billion CFUs. And then you want to consider a multi-strain formulation. So that can provide, you know, a very broad, you know, broader benefits that will help mimic the diversity of your gut microbiome and make sure that it does contain the strains that you know that are effective for IBD, like the ones we mentioned above. And then you've got to make sure that you are looking at quality brands and you're buying from a reputable dispensary. And so, you know, honestly, I would shy away from going to Amazon. I know it's convenient, yet you honestly don't know where they're coming from and you don't know how long they've been there, if they are, you know, if they're expired. So, you know, if you go to my website, wendyhandy.com, under my resources, I do have a link to my Fullscript dispensary, and it's got hundreds of reputable brands of quality supplements that are also, I do offer a 25% discount. So just make sure that you are getting those quality supplements. And, you know, always, always, always consult your healthcare professional. If you don't have one, find one before you start a supplement regimen and, you know, introduce them slowly. So don't just throw five supplements at once. And, you know, if you have some sort of a digestive issue or any kind of a reaction whatsoever, if you're throwing five of them at full dose, you have no idea which one caused it. So always consult a healthcare professional. And I can't stress enough to test, don't guess. They can, you know, probiotics can play a significant role in supporting your gut health and managing IBD. Just you have to make sure that you choose the right strains and formulations for your individual needs from a reputable and quality probiotics. And then the second foundational one is prebiotics. And, you know, to put it simply, they are the food or the fuel for the probiotic. And you can get prebiotics from foods to help maintain. They're not necessarily going to help you to, you might need to supplement with prebiotics. But the foods, the most common foods that contain prebiotics are, you know, artichokes, garlic, onions, leeks, asparagus, even bananas and flax seeds. So those are all really good options for you to get your prebiotics that will help feed and fuel your probiotics. And then the next foundational supplement is a digestive enzyme. So digestive enzymes help you break down your food and improve that nutrient absorption. And if you are like me and you've had your gallbladder removed, ox bile is a critical supplement to help break down and digest the fat because you don't have that, that bile storage organ there, that gallbladder to store it for you. So you need to supplement with that. So digestive enzymes can be very helpful. And then glutamine. So glutamine is an amino acid that plays a vital role in supporting your gut health, your immune function, even your muscle recovery. But it can be particularly beneficial for those with IBD and, or if you're just looking to support your intestinal lining or your overall health. And some of the best ways to get your glutamine from dietary sources is animal proteins like, you know, beef, chicken, fish, eggs, even dairy products. And if you are a vegan or vegetarian, plant-based sources are beans, lentils, nuts, seeds, and whole grains. Even cabbage is, particularly raw cabbage is a great source of glutamine. And you can add that obviously to your salads. You can put it in smoothies. You can even juice it if you want an extra boost. But if you're looking for a higher dose and you need a higher dose to help tame a flare, some of the best options for supplements are L-glutamine powder. And that's the most convenient way to get the higher doses that you need. And it's easy to use. It can be mixed into juice or smoothies or even protein shakes. You can even mix it in water. It's very, very quickly absorbed. And it provides a very high dose per serving, again, for that, ideal for that therapeutic purpose. You can take capsules or tablets. They're convenient if you are looking for a pre-measured dose or if you don't like the taste of the powder. There's not a huge taste to it, but there is some taste to it. But the downfall with taking the capsules or tablets is that they require so many of them to get that required dosage. So a general typical dose range for anybody who's just looking to maintain is 5 to 10 grams. If you're looking to help tame a flare and for your gut health and IBD, higher doses like 10 to 15 grams a day might be recommended. But again, check with your health care provider for sure and monitor any side effects that you might have. It's generally safe and for most people and some may experience a very mild side effect like gastrointestinal discomfort. So you might have to adjust the timing and or the dosage for a while and titrate up, which I always recommend with supplements anyway. And then the third or the next one is omega-3 fatty acids. We've discussed this before, but omega-3 fatty acids are very highly anti-inflammatory. And so the best sources are from fish, fish oil or flaxseed oil. Again, if you're a vegan vegetarian and just check for your dosage and make sure you're getting enough per. So those are the foundational, but then you have some supplemental supporting supplements for specific needs. So vitamin D, vitamin D is something that if you are in an active flare, chances are you are going to be low in vitamin D. It's extremely important for your immune function and your overall gut health. And this is another one that you always want to test first and don't guess because you don't want to have too much vitamin D either. Not enough is not good and too much is not good either. That can actually be dangerous. So always test your vitamin D levels first and a great way to get your vitamin D is to go out in the morning in for 10 to 20 minutes without sunscreen, primarily from your waist up sun exposure. And the next one is zinc. So the benefits of zinc, of course, we know supports your immune function and it does help your gut lining. Ideal dosages are 20 to 25 milligrams. Ideal dosages are 20 to 25 milligrams a day. And then curcumin or turmeric. So these are very well known for their anti-inflammatory effects. It's a potent antioxidant. It's going to help neutralize those free radicals that can damage the cells and compromise that gut lining. So how do you integrate supplements into your daily life? So you want to make sure that you once again are monitoring the effectiveness of what you're taking first of all. You might think about taking a supplement log and just seeing what you're taking and writing down if you do feel differences. If you're not feeling any differences, then why bother taking it? And notice if you have any kind of a side effect too. And then you might adjust the dosage and the timing of when you're taking them too and what you're combining just to make sure you're not taking anything that might have any potential interactions. So if you are on any medications, you want to make sure that your supplements are not going to interact with that. Again, can't stress enough, check with your health care provider or find one that can help you with that. And then again, the quality and safety of choosing that high quality supplement. Your lifestyle and your supplementation. So your diet and your lifestyle can enhance your body's ability to use these supplements effectively. And so not only supplements are not the one size fits all, you've got to combine it with a balanced diet of whole foods, reducing your stress, getting a little bit of exercise, and certainly getting adequate sleep. Those are all going to help with the supplementation. So it's not just taking supplements is the fix it, quick fix it. No, you've got to do the whole lifestyle with it. And then, you know, it's got to be personalized for you and based on what you need on your labs and your lab results and your individual needs at the time. Because it's going to change too. And, you know, there are some myths out there about supplements. And one of them is that, you know, more is better and that all natural supplements are safe. And that's not always the case. More is not better, especially, like I said, with vitamin D. Too much vitamin D can be dangerous. So, you know, always make sure that you are working with someone that can find the quality, give you the quality supplements and what's going to be right for your specific needs at the time. So I hope this has been helpful. I hope you have a little bit better understanding of how supplements can help you and your overall gut health and help you not only to maintain remission with your IBD, but also to help calm a flare. So thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time. Hey there, thanks for tuning in. I hope this episode provided you with some valuable insights and tips. If you learned something new, I'd truly appreciate it if you would leave me a review, subscribe, and share it with another entrepreneur that you think might find it valuable. Don't forget to shoot me a DM over on Instagram at Coach Wendy Handy. See you in the next episode. And until then, stay happy and stay healthy.