Barbell Shrugged - [Farting] Exploring the Science of Passing Gas w/ Dan Garner, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash #685

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

In Today’s Episode of Barbell Shrugged, we’ll be exploring the science behind this natural bodily function and answering some of the most common questions people have about farting. First off, we'll be asking the question: What causes flatulence, and why do some people produce more gas than others? Our bodies produce gas during the process of digestion, and certain foods can contribute to excessive gas production. Additionally, factors like stress and digestive disorders can also impact the amount of gas we produce. Next, we'll be exploring the question: Is it normal to fart a lot, or could excessive flatulence be a sign of an underlying health issue? While some amount of farting is normal, excessive flatulence could be a symptom of a digestive disorder. Moving on, we'll be discussing the question: Can certain foods or drinks cause more flatulence than others, and if so, which ones? Yes, certain foods like beans, broccoli, and dairy products can contribute to excessive gas production. Additionally, carbonated drinks like soda and beer can also lead to more frequent farting. We'll also be delving into the question: Is there a way to reduce the odor of flatulence, or is it just an inevitable part of the process? While some amount of odor is normal, certain foods like spices and onions can contribute to more pungent smells. Additionally, maintaining a healthy gut microbiome through a balanced diet and probiotic supplements can help reduce the odor of flatulence. Next up, we'll be exploring the question: How does flatulence impact our gut health, and is it a sign of a healthy or unhealthy gut? Flatulence is a normal part of the digestive process, and some amount of gas production is necessary for healthy gut function. However, excessive flatulence could be a sign of an underlying digestive disorder. We'll also be discussing the question: Can holding in flatulence be harmful to our bodies, and if so, how? While holding in farting is generally not harmful, it can lead to discomfort and bloating. Additionally, consistently holding in flatulence could potentially lead to more serious digestive issues over time. Finally, we'll be delving into the question: Can flatulence be a sign of a more serious health condition, such as inflammatory bowel disease or celiac disease? If so, what other symptoms should we look out for? Yes, excessive flatulence could be a symptom of a digestive disorder like irritable bowel syndrome or celiac disease. Other symptoms could include diarrhea, constipation, and abdominal pain.   To learn more, please go to https://rapidhealthreport.com Connect with our guests: Dan Garner on Instagram Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrug, you guessed it. Talking about farting. Flatulence. Maybe we'll call it that. Most likely we're just gonna call it farting because everybody does it. Everybody knows everybody does it, but nobody ever really digs into why we do it

or what are the physiological reasons for it. And Dan Garner is on the show today to break down all you need to know about why we fart, when farting may become a health issue that you need to dig into, the foods that you are eating that may be causing you to do it, as well as kind of understanding

when the type of farts that you pass, I think that's right, when you pass gas, are there health concerns that you should be worried about? And I'm excited about this show because how many times do you get to sit around with your bros and just talk about farting in an intelligent way? And that's what we're gonna do here today, friends.

As always, get over to rapidehealthreport.com. That's where you get to schedule a call with me. You can also check out Dan Garner and Dr. Andy Galpin do a lifestyle performance and lab analysis exactly like we do for every single person that comes into Rapid Health Optimization. So get over to rapidhealthreport.com. That's where you can check all that out. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mass, Dan Garner.

Dan Garner, back on the show today, friends. Dude, where have you been? You're out there trying to get, like, at one time, the most overweight powerlifter on this planet is now running the Boston Marathon, and you are making this happen somehow? What are you doing with Mark Bell out there? Oh, dude. Yeah, I haven't been on the show in a while. I apologize, everybody.

Everything's been wildly busy, but I hope you can understand that it's all for reasons of getting some of the best athletes in the world to do some of the coolest things. And this is the first time I've ever prepped somebody for a Boston Marathon, let alone a former world record-holding powerlifter for the Boston Marathon.

So it's a complete and full flip. I've been to Sacramento. I've observed what he's doing, done all his labs. I'm a part of his entire training programming process the nutrition the supplementation absolutely everything so we're uh we've partnered up for this and i can't wait until april 17th he's gonna go smash it out is he pretty good at like um like doing what you say um i mean yes and no but that was like that was such a inside question that he asked he was just waiting for the answer even though he kind of he was like i know mark i just know him really well i mean he obviously is doing something right so i know he's at least listening 80 of the time but like

you know he's like me yeah but dumbass i said yes and no for a good reason because that that's what i've always said before. It's like there is a quantification stage and a qualification stage to coaching. Long story short, it's basically a model based approach to how I coach everybody in the first X amount of years, basically one to five years. You're in your quantification stage where you're going to do it, I say, no matter what, because we're going to use the scientific evidence in my experience to program your macros, your micros, your training volume, your training intensity, your training frequency. We're going to utilize outside-in methodologies

because you don't know the language of your body enough yet to be able to make decisions for yourself. You just need to listen to coach, and I am going to build your foundation. After the quantification stage, you move into something I call the qualification stage to where it becomes a coaching relationship rather than a coaching dictatorship. And now I am qualifying my decisions through you rather than quantifying them at you. So Mark's intelligence of his body, his recovery capacity, when his joints are aching, when he's performing, when he's not performing, when he's psychologically aroused for training, when he's not, I have to believe him because he has been training way longer than I have and achieved heights that I haven't. So he knows his body better than I'll ever know it, even if I do all the labs in the world on him. So I qualify

all decisions through him. So even if we veer from the structured framework it's always for a good reason perfect yeah what's beautiful what's that i saw him a few weeks ago like he was running and he said it was completely his fault but he went a little bit too far or something and i bonked yeah yeah so he uh gets a little loud with things sometimes can go a little too fast beyond the pace recommendation or um just kind of combine a bunch of stuff all at the same time. He ended up creating a big combination and cocktail of ketones and carbs and kratom and all this stuff kind of all at the same time. And then I ended up doing a video on it explaining the biochemistry over on his YouTube channel. But yeah, it wasn't a true bonk. It was just way too many stimulants and supplements

all happening at the same time, creating a negative backwards effect that we needed to get away from. Well, dude, now that you've moved this giant mountain, Travis Mash is up next for the marathon. So you got your workout out for you. Hey, dude, I ran a marathon last year. Mark Bell ran a marathon this year you're running

a marathon next year there it is i would need to do that i need some new wheels for we got time um yo friends today on barbell shrug we'll be talking about farting which is awesome because we all do it and that's uh a good reason for us to have a show and not me. Let's ask your wife. We're going to dig into why we do it when it's healthy, when it's not healthy and really all the details. But dude, I would love to know Dan right off the top. Why do we fart? Like in general, why does gas come out of us and make us all laugh? Yeah. Beyond this comic relief for everybody.

That's the only reason actually. Nature was like, we need a good joke. Yeah, exactly. No. So in a real sense, we've got more cells of bacteria in us than we actually do ourselves. We have more bacteria in terms of cell number than we do actual human tissue, which is quite wild. And one of the biggest reasons why we produce a ton of gas is because bacteria eat too. They're a living organism, they need to survive, they need to adapt, and they need fuel in order to do what they do. So what they'll typically do is eat certain portions of our food and they'll convert it into hydrogen, methane and carbon dioxide.

And then we end up flatulating a lot of that out. That typically comes from indigestible things. And that's why things like certain carbohydrates, certain sugars and certain fibers are all indigestible by human tissue, but not indigestible by bacteria. So when we have, for example, beans, beans are very high fiber, which contain a lot of resistant, digestively resistant carbohydrates, which in turn feeds the bacteria a ton, which allows them to make a bunch of hydrogen and methane. And then we end up producing a bunch of gas. The important thing to note here, though, is gas is normal. Gas is a part of a healthy digestive system, you're supposed to feed your

bacteria, and you're supposed to fart that is a sick that is a signal of true efficiency and health indigestion, it would actually be more weird for you to not fart at all than for you to have some flatulations in place. And in terms of statistics, when you're looking at gastrointestinal research, 14 to 23 farts per day is considered normal. 14 to 23 is considered completely normal, asymptomatic, nothing. So that's actually quite a bit. Cause if you consider we're awake for maybe 16 hours or something like that, the average person, uh, you know, that's, you know, we're talking one in between one and two farts per hour per hour of waking. Even if you were awake for 24 hours straight, like a fricking psychopath, you would be farting once an hour for

23 of those hours. So a lot of people, I think that they are trying to kill their farts with like enzymes and things like that out of anxiety, rather than something actually being wrong with their gut at all. Yeah. I guess digging into the I feel feel like when I'm eating healthy though, maybe I just don't know, or, or like I'm counting those times and it, and it is. But I feel like I don't, if I'm on my diet and on nutrition and it feel, and like, I feel really good. I don't notice any, and I definitely don't notice any like smell attached to it right is that a piece of it like how do we know if it's a healthy fart or an unhealthy fart well so a healthy fart actually shouldn't have a major odor to it that is it just like a healthy

poo should not have a major odor to it a healthy poo should actually have an earthy smell to it, almost like dirt, grass, that kind of thing. It should not smell completely putrid. So when you have putrid farts or putrid stools, that is absolutely a sign of gut health abnormalities and something actually being not digested properly. So for example, a big reason why a lot

of people have gas could be lactose intolerance. What happens there is you actually don't have the enzyme lactase to break down lactose. And then when you don't break down lactose, it's going to be fermented in your gut and create a lot of terrible smelling gas because it's not feeding the body. It's not a good fuel source for the bacteria. It's not something that needs to be there or should be there at all. And that's why we get a lot of negative symptoms. We get bloating, we get water retention, we get discomfort, we get a whole lot happening there. That would be an example of something that would smell very bad and would be example of bad gas. But when something passes easily,

and when something is odorless, or just has a slight odor to it, that's something that's really is a sign of good digestion. But on the topic of holding farts, like some people actually hold farts for a long time out of embarrassment. You guys would be amazed at how much that increases your risk for hemorrhoids. Holding farts alone dramatically, dramatically, depending on what papers you look at, like it can 3x your increased risk for hemorrhoids, which is a lot. So somebody can kind of just hold something for the purpose of anxiety or whatever it is. Your increased risk for hemorrhoids can go up. But your overall risk for gastrointestinal health issues is going to go up as well, because that does need to be released and gas balance needs to take place. Shark family, I want to take a quick break. If you are enjoying

today's conversation, I want to invite you to come over to rapidhealthreport.com. When you get to rapidhealthreport.com, you will see an area for you to opt in, in which you can see Dan Garner read through my lab work. Now, you know that we've been working at Rapid Health Optimization on programs for optimizing health. Now, what does that actually mean? It means in three parts, we're going to be doing a ton of deep dive into your labs. That means the inside out approach.

So we're not gonna be guessing your macros. We're not gonna be guessing the total calories that you need. We're actually gonna be doing all the work to uncover everything that you have going on inside you. Nutrition, supplementation, sleep. Then we're going to go through and analyze your lifestyle. Dr. Andy Galpin is going to build out a lifestyle protocol based on the severity of your concerns.

And then we're going to also build out all the programs that go into that based on the most severe things first. This truly is a world-class program, and we invite you to see step one of this process by going over to rapidhealthreport.com. You can see Dan reading my labs, the nutrition and supplementation that he has recommended that has radically shifted the way that I sleep, the energy that I have during the day, my total testosterone level, and just my ability to trust and have confidence in my health going forward. I really, really hope that you're able to go over to rapidhealthreport.com, watch the video of my labs, and see what is possible. And if it is something

that you are interested in, please schedule a call with me on that page. Once again, it's rapidhealthreport.com, and let's get back to the show. So if you're on a date for the first time with some hot girl, just say, sorry, man, this is for this is for my health. So if you want to impress your hot girl, be like, I'm actually holding farts for you. I know I'm gonna get a hemorrhoid from this. This is all for you. Yeah, this is this is a heart hemorrhoid she's gonna understand she's gonna understand your super skill is discipline which is great yes that's what she needs that's what she needs to hear like this guy's really gonna be successful one day he can hold it in god this guy cares about me i can't imagine they're talking to her friends we're literally gonna do an hour

on fart jokes here we go well what's lucky for us, though, is it's scientifically proven that girls don't fart anyways. So on that side of the equation, we're fine. That's perfect. You mentioned carbohydrates earlier. And what kind of happens on the digestive side that would lead to increased flatulence? Increased flatulence is going to vary from person to person for a lot of reasons. So I don't want to just blame carbs like, yes, you know, there's sugars in milk that are carbs that contain lactose that can cause flatulence. There is sugars in fruit and sodas that create a lot of gas for a lot of people because a lot of people are fructose intolerant. So there's a lot of ways in which we can kind of pin down carbs. But the truth of the matter is that there's

a lot of other reasons why people have gas, you can have internal gut issues, you can overeat in single sittings, you can swallow a lot of air, you can chew gum, you can not drink enough water, these are all things that contribute to why one person has more gas than the next. Like for example, just just drinking a significant amount of water per day, like half an ounce of water per pound of body weight is the typical recommendation I like people to have on non training days. And on training days, we'd add more on top of that. Water alone is very, very often the reason for people's constipation. And if somebody is constipated, they're going to have way more gas. So it could have nothing to do with your protein intake, your carb intake, the type of fiber,

the fats, the bacteria. It could have nothing to do with anything that you're actually chasing the wrong thing. So like most things in life, a proper assessment is going to lead you down the right path. Are you sitting and eating too much in a single sitting? A lot of people in intermittent fasting, it might actually not be the right diet for them because maybe their gastrointestinal tract is not built for that type of situation and they get a ton of gastro at the wrong time. If you're not drinking enough water, you're going to run into constipation issues.

If you're not drinking enough water, you're going to run into constipation issues. If you are, or you haven't had a- Can you explain why, you know, with the water, is it because it's not like, you know, flushing the track or like, why does, you know, a lack of water have anything to do with that? Yeah. So water actually helps soften stools. Right. When stools are softened, you're going to be able to eliminate them a lot more efficiently. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. You're going to be able to eliminate them a lot more efficiently. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So the variation in gas from one person to the next is always going to be different. I used to work with a lot of bodybuilders and bikini competitors when I was first coming up in the industry. And it's super, super common in the industry to chew gum as an appetite suppressant. But that was almost always blowing out their waste and making them a lot more bloated and more gassy. And they are blaming it on things like I'm having protein

farts, or this is the this is the very strict diet, which is making me fart a lot more. Artificial sweeteners can give you gas, but also simply swallowing air gives you a lot of gas. You swallow much more air when you're chewing gum. You swallow air when you're having soda. That's another appetite suppressant technique is just have diet Coke or diet Pepsi or frescas, these things that have zero calories, but they contain a lot of air, can bloat you and give you a lot of gas at the same time. So it's not just carbs. There's a very, very wide range of things that can give you gas. But even at the end of the day, even if you are partaking in any of those things, you can fire it up to 23 times per day. And that's absolutely

considered normal. It's only considered abnormal once you're 24 plus in addition to other symptoms as well. Would the rate of chewing have anything to do with it? Because I know like my bear, my son and I, we're known to eat too quickly. And then to swallow, obviously, that means we take in air to swallow more than most people might. But just chewing, how important is chewing to having a good digestive tract? It's huge. And just eating slowly is huge. Actually, Paul Cech, he had a quote that was eat your water and drink your food.

And I always liked that Paul Cech said that because he was basically saying, don't chug your water and chew your food till it's at a very fine consistency before swallowing it. That's a quote that I won't ever forget because back when I was working at Gold's Gym, I used to tell a lot of people that I had Paul Cech all DVDs back in the day when DVDs were actually a thing. I used to watch those. I think it was called you are what you eat. But anyways, he used to say that and then precision nutrition as actually what exposed me to a ton of real research behind allowing each meal to last at least 20 minutes. When you're allowing each meal to last

20 minutes, you are much more mindful, you're slowing down your eating, and you are in turn chewing a lot more. There's research on actually the amount of chews, like chewing 50 times versus 100 times of people actually counting their chews, which is very unrealistic in a real situation. But what you're doing with way more chews is increasing surface area. When you're increasing surface area of your food, your digestive tract has to work way less in order to break it down. Our digestive tract is even built for surface area. We have our small intestine, and then we have little finger-like projections called V-Li on them that go up, just like these little fingers, right? And then your food goes up a V-Li and then down and up and down,

just like it would on hills or a roller coaster for people who can definitely only hear this and not see it. The reason why we have V-Li is so we can increase surface area of the small intestine for more opportunities for things like brush border enzymes and all these things that take place and break down the food even more. And then surface area is increased on top of surface area with microvilli. So on top of our villi sticking up, we actually have microvilli on every single villi to increase

surface area even more on top of what it's already at. So when we are increasing the amount we chew, we break that food down dramatically to increase the surface area before it enters our small intestine. And anytime you can do the work chewing before it enters your gut, you're going to have a much better digestive experience overall. How long should you chew each bite? Not to make this about chewing, but yeah. It depends on the consistency of the food, right? Because something like cottage cheese has such an easy consistency versus a red meat steak, which is something that you absolutely should break down.

So something I've always put on the sidebar of my meal plans for my clients is allow each meal to last 20 minutes. When you do something like that, you've got the chewing kind of takes care of itself. When you're making someone sit there for 20 minutes, you get the surface area benefit from it, but you're also reducing gas because you're allowing the appetite to actually catch up with the signaling. Like if you, and I believe you said you and your son eat too fast. Is that what you said? Yeah. So your appetite doesn't even have a chance to catch up to say, we probably don't need this much food. You guys are just smashing food in probably 10 minutes.

And we're the two biggest in the family and we fart the most in the family. This is called clinical correlation. This sounds like science right here. I'm hooking you up, man. I'm hooking you up right now. This is mechanistic theory leading to real world results in more farting yo uh on the other side of that if you're listening to this and you're like man i never fart i like i fart like once uh every couple days or once a week or whatever it is like maybe you just don't notice but if you're not farting uh but every

couple of days and you're really supposed to be farting every hour or so, like, is that also a problem? What's the downside of never farting? There is no downside to never farting so long as you don't have gastrointestinal symptoms. So for example, something like SIBO is a small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. You can actually have certain bacteria in your small intestine. Most of them reside within the large intestine, but you can have certain bacteria within your small intestine that either preferentiate the consumption and creation of either hydrogen or methane. When you do SIBO tests, the validation of them is very poor. The real way to identify SIBO is to actually look at the duodenum through this

scope that actually is in there looking at it. But you can do certain tests that it's an air test to see how much hydrogen and methane you are producing after being given a solution of carbohydrates that would produce that. If you hit certain levels of methane or hydrogen, then it can determine what type of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth you have, or can at least contribute towards some type of consensus because of the current invalidity of the test. But regardless, if somebody has a small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, they're going to be a lot more prone to bloating and discomfort within the gut and way more prone to belching

as opposed to a lot of farting. So I'd probably consider both ends of the tube in that scenario. If somebody is not farting at all, but they're burping a lot, that's still an issue. But if they're not farting at all and they have no gastrointestinal symptoms, I wouldn't even be worried about that at all. That would be somebody that is probably just has a digestive a healthy digestive track and is eating a plan that is just fine for them wait so you just mentioned burping so you got you got air coming out the top side you got air coming out the bottom side which is

the whole purpose of the show and then then some people also have gas pains where like they just have like a gas bubble just like in there that that's causing them pain like i know i know people that have like like it like won't come out They have to go lay down because it's painful. They have gas pains. I think gas X or whatever, try to like manage those symptoms. But, um, you know, how does that play into this whole, this whole mix? Yeah. So a gas pocket is typically SIBO. So somebody that is when a gas pocket is in your intestine. So you actually just have a bunch of either methane or hydrogen sitting right in your gut. That's a true pocket that you're really only going to address by running a type of SIBO protocol by actually getting rid of that. And when you're looking in the literature, something like

berberine is quite effective at impacting hydrogen specific bacteria, whereas garlic is a lot more effective at getting rid of methane specific bacteria. And there's a whole host of them. But if somebody has gas pockets that don't that don't just go away, I consider that a dysfunction. If you even if you're farting, say 14 times a day, which is supposedly considered normal, if some of those 14 are pocketed, that is absolutely abnormal. And that's a situation where you would need to get a coach and get some labs done without a doubt. Earlier, you mentioned beans. I just in the last couple of days, I ate some chili that had a ton of beans in it, which I don't regularly do these days. And the next day I was farting a ton. Beans, a bunch of fiber, a bunch of indigestible carbohydrates and they make you fart a lot.

Like, but most people consider fiber to be like this positive, healthy thing. But the next day I was farting way more than once an hour or for at least the morning, if not, not the whole day. Um, you know, what's the, what's the balance there between like, between eating fiber, which is generally considered to be a good thing. And then farting, you know, what I would consider to be excessively. Um, I would probably look at like an area under the curve. So how many farts was it in the whole day, rather than just in that pocketed timeframe? Because beans, they contain a lot of fiber, sure, but they contain something unique known as raffinose, which really can

increase farting even more, which makes beans even unique to other high fiber things. Like people can have Metamucil. It's a very low gas producing fiber. I very, very commonly put baby carrots into my clients plans because it's a very, very low gas producing fiber. So it's a way in which you can have a vehicle for fiber without containing something such as raffinose, which really increases gas production. I think it's important to have a fiber intake of anywhere from 10 to 13 grams per 1000 calories per day. And that if you uniquely have a major response to a larger fiber intake at one sitting, then we would just separate that out. I still think it's very important to have fiber, but through a you can have a vehicle for low gas producing fiber. And then B, I actually think if somebody has a gas issue, you don't have to jump to something as complicated as a stool test right away. And sometimes it is absolutely as simple as keeping a food diary. If you have

a gas problem and you don't keep a food diary, then you're not doing the easiest thing possible in order to identify what your issue is. Keeping a food diary is what's going to allow you to actually keep track of what's making you feel a certain way beyond just gas. Like you're going to have other things as well, like loose stools, or like constipation, or like brain fog or bloating. These are a food diary is kind of like a secret weapon to identify a lot of different things, gas just being one of them. So for you, after having chili and a bunch of beans,

I'd be like, cool. I know, Doug, I know you don't have gastrointestinal issues, but you seemed a little bit uniquely reactive to that. Could have been the raffinols. At the end of the day, I don't really care. I still want you to have the fiber. Let's just decrease your serving size of the chili next time, and you're going to be A-OK. Yeah.

How do you know if whatever gas you have is creeping into more serious health issues or like autoimmune issues? Are there signs that people can at least look for that can can kind of show them that there's something bigger going on? Yeah, for sure. Because if you've got a lot of gas, and it's coming with other symptoms, then I think something is absolutely going on. And I think if you have a gas, and then something works to stop it, like for example, lactobacillus and bifidobacterium are two different bacteria strands that have really been demonstrated to reduce gas production. But why is that? It's because you have some state of dysbiosis because you have some imbalance in bacteria. If you have a lot of gas,

and then you take digestive enzymes, and it works, well, that's gonna be great. It can reduce your gas so long as you keep continuing taking digestive enzymes for the rest of your life. But why did you need to take the enzymes in the first place? Was there a pancreatic duct issue? Was there a bile duct issue? Why did that even work? That is a sign of dysfunction. So if you have gas, I consider gas to be very, very, very normal. And it's almost always normal. Like between 14 to 23 being normal and somebody working a nine to five office job, like, of course, you don't want to fart in the office, but that doesn't mean you need a gut protocol. It just means that you don't want to fart in the office and you're going to have to sneak off to the bathroom and pretend you just don't think or you want to do it at the

office. You just don't want them to notice you. Yeah. Right. Yeah. The airplane the office. You just don't want them to notice you. Right? Or the airplane. Right. Walk by and crop that. All the cubicles. I love it when I do it.

I look at someone, I'm like, who did that? That's terrible. Can you believe the nerve of these people on this airplane? Yeah. Yeah. Typically, you're going gonna see that if it is an issue like for example autoimmunity a ton of autoimmunity begins within the gut so if you have skin issues i mean in in combination with uncharacteristic bloating flatulence and and and it's um very uh smelly and rancid in that sense, then I absolutely think you need a stool test.

If you're getting a lot of bloating, if you have pockets of gas, like Doug said, typically like people will know if something else is going on. It's kind of rare, like when it's just gas, if it's truly just gas, you probably just need to clean up your diet and keep a food diary.

It really doesn't have to be that complicated. But if you're finding supplements are working, then they're managing symptoms of a deeper issue that should probably be uncovered via blood work, urinalysis, stool analysis. You can find a whole lot to do with blood work, but you could be walking around with something like hypochlorhydria. You could be walking around with bacterial overgrowth or fungi overgrowth or parasitic over like, we don't actually know what's going on. And the proper assessment is going to identify that. But I would say, you know, as a long way to answer this, if your flatulence is in

tandem with any other symptom that you know, to be an issue, especially if supplements are actually suppressing this symptom and not solving the root cause problem, you've had this issue for a while, then it's, it's absolutely time to get some blood work done. Yeah. Um, as a, as like a broad statement, and I know, uh, this isn't, uh, probably like the best question, but are there, uh, probiotics, multivitamins so that you can increase like micronutrient, um, just making sure that you have all the vitamins and minerals. Is there probiotics? Are there things that people can take to like a low level one, not some of the more aggressive ones, but just to kind of figure out like, oh, this worked and then kind of be able to triage or at least go look for answers based off of like taking a multivitamin to make sure that they have

like everything that they need on the vitamins and minerals side or a probiotic that they need to kind of like reduce the symptoms and then take it to step two, to be able to like start to dig in and understand what's going on. Yeah, yeah. So I think that could probably be tackled in two ways. So number one, people probably already have some blood work. So I can give you a couple of tips on what to infer from your current blood work you already have. Second thing would be some low hanging fruit. So like basic nutrients to a day. That is a thorny. I like when I ask a question and then Dan answers it better than I asked it. You read my mind, right? So very low hanging fruit supplements, basic nutrients today from Thorne is just a great way to get in super bioavailable vitamins and minerals. I think that's very important because

if you're somebody with gut issues, well, you aren't what you eat. You only are what you eat and actually absorb. So I don't actually know what your micronutrient status is currently like, and it's never a bad thing to take a high quality multivitamin anyways. So getting that type of multivitamin in to ensure you have better micronutrient status, especially because if you have gut issues, you're at risk of having poor micronutrient status. I really think that that is a good idea. Omega threes would be a great idea. Omega threes are taken for a lot of reasons. People know they're good for brain health. They know they're good for inflammation and blood sugar. A lot of people don't know omega threes actually helps suppress lipopolysaccharide induced inflammatory reactions in the body.

Lipopolysaccharides are inflammatory bacteria. Omega threes help neutralize these. So between a multi between omega threes neutralizing inflammation until you figure out what the problem actually is. I think those are two great things to utilize. I also think if something like Floramand from Thorne, which is a product that contains bacteria strands that help lower gas, if that does really work for you, then there's probably a good indication that you're in a type of dysbiotic state right now. A true state of dysbiosis hasn't actually been identified yet, but neither has a state of eubiosis, which would be considered the perfect state of bacteria.

So when I say dysbiosis, I really just mean a state of true imbalance that is causing symptoms. But regardless, that's a semantic. When we have fluoramide, if that's not working to lower gas, or if it is working, rather than it's doing it for the for reasons that are currently involving your bacteria. So between those three, I think those are low hanging fruit things to start with. In terms of actual blood work, you can go down a real rabbit hole here. A good kickoff point would be if your MCV is above 95, that is a good indication of something known as hypochlorhydria. So MCV, it's a blood marker. MCV stands for mean corpuscular volume, mean average corpuscular red blood cell volume size. So mean corpuscular volume represents the

average size of your red blood cells. Your red blood cells are formed through something known as erythropoiesis. Erythropoiesis has many, many, many steps in it. And about, let's say halfway through, it goes through something known as nuclear maturation. Nuclear maturation, if this process doesn't go well, then it expands the size of your red blood cell. That process in nuclear maturation requires B12 and folate. So if we do not have a lot of B12 and we do not have a lot of folate, then our MCV will increase because nuclear maturation happened incorrectly. And therefore we have larger red blood cells. You actually see this in anemic research,

there's something known as B12 folate anemia. And it is characterized by having anemic symptoms in combination with an MCV above 95. Yet the MCV reference range goes to 99. So you can actually be in a state of B12 folate anemia and still be within the reference range, which is quite wild. But how this ties back into the gut, as we secrete something known as intrinsic factor from the chief cells of our stomach, intrinsic factor grabs on to B12, carries it all the way down to the ileum, which is the third section of our small intestine,

and then binds to a B12 receptor in the ileum, okay? If we don't secrete intrinsic factor in the stomach to grab onto B12 that was in our steak, well, then that means that there was low acid secretion in the stomach. Hypo means low, chlorhydria means acid. If you have a state of hypochlorhydria, even though that's something that's better defined in a stool test, an obvious and very clear good clue that you have low acid output is from having

an MCV above 95 because an MC above 95 represents low B12 status, low B12 would be taking place because we didn't have enough intrinsic factors secreted to actually absorb that thing. So now we have unhealthy red blood cells, which is going to reduce oxygenation, reduce energy, give us a lot of symptoms of fatigue. And that had nothing to do with the red blood cells. It didn't even have anything to do with the B12 content in your diet. It had everything to do with your lack of intrinsic factor secretion due to hypochlorhydria. But if we have low acid secretion, we're also not breaking down our food properly. We're not breaking down our food properly, we're going to have a lot of gas production. You see how a lot can kind of tie together to create a great story. We have gas in combination with an MCV above 95. Well, then we have absolutely looking at a

situation that we have indigestion due to hypochlorhydria and an objective representation of that by MCV above 95. We can start to begin the protocol process from blood work and subjective symptoms outside in, inside out to start working on the gut health to restore all things physiology, let alone just your gas. Dan, do you think that it's pretty obvious that we need to redo this whole, that what they consider to be normal in the medical community? That's the biggest thing I've learned from you is that a doctor doesn't know shit is basically what you're saying. Because, like, you're fine, but you're saying, well, you're not fine at all. You know, 95 is good.

No, it's not. Like, damn, there needs to be some rethinking here. Like, they just want to, you'll live. That's all they're saying. Like, you won't live well. You'll survive today. But that's it yeah the medical the medical community they're they're truly brilliant they've done an amazing job at saving people who are on the brink of illness and death but to be frank they have done a terrible job at truly optimizing

people's health and that's where a major change needs to take place. And I consider that to be like my primary life's mission. I think I haven't been pushed to identify my own optimal ranges for blood work. I've been pulled like it's it's something I think about in the middle of the night. It's all I think about. And there's so much that can be pulled from blood work like there's like even going into back into blood work for gut there's like even it going into back into uh blood work for gut health like um uric acid uric acid above seven is representative of intestinal permeability so leaky gut yeah uric acid reference ranges regularly go up to eight and a half so you're telling me that intestinal permeability can be triggered around uh or rather over seven and actually i can have an uric acid over seven

and an MCV above 95. Both of them will be considered in the normal reference range. Yeah, both would represent hypoclorohydria and intestinal permeability. Like, man, that's a problem. Yeah. And especially when you don't consider someone's subjectivity, and they're like the clinical correlation we're talking about previously, what does that person actually experiencing life let's actually look at that within the blood work they're just saying you're gonna survive the trip home that's all you'll make it home you'll die tonight but you're good yeah yeah man like that that there is an unbelievable amount of information you can draw from blood work and those are just two ones relevant to today's episode with gas.

You have a couple of those readings and there are many more. You will absolutely be on a very educated and objective path towards figuring out why you actually have gas to begin with. Real quick, unrelated to farting in general, just talking about blood work. Why are there not more ratios discussed? I've been curious about this. When you talk about cholesterol, people talk about total cholesterol to HDL or LDL to HDL,

that type of thing. Ratios are commonly discussed, but I feel like with the rest of your blood work, how many markers are on a normal CBC, CMP type panel? 20-ish, in between 10 and 20, depending on what they order you. Okay, so you have 20 markers. Presumably there's optimum ratios between these 20 markers, plus all the other markers

that you could possibly test. But I feel like the ratios aren't as commonly discussed as they are with, again, say cholesterol. Like what's the deal with that in general? That's a question I'm still asking, man. I don't know why ratios aren't discussed more often. I don't know why calculations and algorithms aren't discussed more often.

I don't know why these things aren't even on labs. Like I, it does fire me up because I just did a post yesterday about estimated average glucose. It's a way in which we can calculate your average actual glucose reading over the past three months. The only thing we need to do in order to calculate that is have your HbA1c ordered, which is always ordered anyways. So why wouldn't you actually just put both on there? Like it's crazy to me that things like that aren't used. Every single ratio and every single calculation should already be on there and they're

not. And I don't know why. My primary suspicion would be that a lot of these ratios represent optimal cutoff values and not actual sickness values. That would be my prime suspicion. And that would increase efficiency in the office space. So I could process you in 15 minutes rather than process you in 30. That would be my main suspicion. But I don't have an answer for you, man. It's a completely open spot in the marketplace. And I think it's insane that more of these aren't discussed.

I have a question kind of revolving around like, we'll just say somebody close to me, had a parasite when we went and ran their stool. And inside that was undigested protein. Is that a place in which maybe gas starts to become like very putrid smelling and that there's just undigested rotting food inside your body. Um, or am I way off on that? No, you're not way off on that. So it kind of ties into what we're talking about. Cause if you have undigested protein, well, protein is primarily broken down by hydrochloric acid. So that ties perfectly into hypochloric acid. If you have a lack of hydrochloric acid, let's say so let's imagine you ate a chicken breast, okay? Yeah, you had a chicken breast, and then you had enough

acid secretion to break down 90% of that chicken breast, 90% of that chicken breast, we had the acid to break it down into peptides and amino acids and properly assimilate it. But there is a remaining 10% left of that chicken breast still there. That is undigested protein. If you have undigested protein, If you have undigested protein, well, we're going to have some bacteria around that are going to be able to eat that. And when protein gets eaten by bacteria, it putrefies. So that that's a that is the true terminology for it. When fats get eaten by bacteria, they go rancid. When carbs get eaten by bacteria, they ferment. So it depends on where the deficiency or food intolerance was taking place.

Lack of acid, you're going to result in putrefaction of that protein. When protein putrefies, that is going to create extreme foul-smelling gas. It's going to create something called indole, which is going to create a gas pocket to tie back into dugs. You could actually, the indole is an organic acid marker that infers towards small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, but also indole is extremely toxic to the system. So the liver actually converts this indole into indican to make it non-toxic or less toxic than it otherwise would have been. And indican can be picked up into the urine

as well. But ultimately, at the end of the day, you're going to have undigested protein picked up in the stool, you're going to have putrefaction of protein in the gut to create gas pockets and foul smelling gas. And a lot of that happened due to hypochlorhydria, which is a lack of stomach acid secretion. Why stomach acid was low to begin with is still up for debate, because we require zinc to actually create stomach acid. So it could have been a low zinc status. We also can have a suppression in hydrochloric acid secretion from purely cortisol. So it could be psychological or emotional to why you're reducing your acid secretion, or that cortisol increase could have come from a hidden stressor, such as a parasite.

In this case, these things run in cycles and labs give us the greatest indication of what's going on. But if you have undigested protein in the stool, it's usually lower stomach acid due to some sort of issue. You can also pick up pancreatic elastase in the stool. That's an enzyme that's secreted from the pancreas. It is co-secreted with other enzymes from the pancreas to break down food, but it's a validated enzyme to look at the stool because it survives the gastrointestinal tract. So it's an enzyme secreted by the pancreas to break down

food. But since it survives the gastrointestinal tract, we can actually look at the amount of it in your stool to determine how much was secreted. And then if you have a very low amount of pancreatic elastase secreted, in combination with symptoms, we know maldigestion is currently taking place. And it's enzyme specific rather than say, hydrochloric acid specific. Yeah, you mentioned the digestive enzymes. And we used to work with a company that I actually really liked their stuff. Like I actually, there was like a noticeable difference, um, working with bioptimizers, the product was called mass times. Um, I actually really liked it. Uh, told tons of people about it because like they,

not only were they advertising, but we were like truly enjoyed their products. Their big thing was protease and being able to break down the protein and why why wouldn't say that specific digestive enzyme be in your gut? Like what would be lacking so that those digestive enzymes like aren't there? Well, everything costs something. So for like when I said zinc is required to make hydrochloric acid, enzymes do come from something. So it could be some sort of a micronutrient efficiency. You could also have pancreatitis, which is inflammation of the pancreas, and you end up actually leaking some enzymes into the bloodstream. One of the big telltale signs of pancreatitis is

actually if you can pick up lipase or amylase in labs, that's one of the big reasons I run them at rapid, I've added lipase and amylase in labs. That's one of the big reasons I run them at Rapid. I've added lipase and amylase to the labs to identify states of pancreatitis so I know exactly what's going on with enzyme secretion. So it could be due to inflammation. It could be due to micronutrients. It could be due to a lack of bile. So sometimes you can actually have all of the acid secretion,

sorry, all of the enzyme secretion from the pancreas. A lot of people don't know that enzymes are inactive until a catalyst is there to activate enzymes. Bile is the catalyst for almost all pancreatic enzymes. So when we eat food, we get a hit of bile from our gallbladder, and then we get a hit of enzymes from the pancreas. The bile is what activates the enzymes to break down the food. So maybe you were actually secreting enough protease, but you weren't

secreting enough bile in order to break down that food. And if you have a lot of gas production from high fat meals, then it's probably an indication that you have low bile acid secretion. In that case, that fat would re-acidify, you would get a lot of gas from that high fat food. And it's a way more of a representation of bile than it is protease. And then kind of a representation of both because bile is what activates protease to begin with. Hey guys, I just want to let you know, I'm really proud of us. We only made fart jokes for like the first 20 minutes and then we had a real conversation. That was very mature of us. I mean, very, very proud to be joking. God, I know. Very proud of us here. Sorry, guys.

Sorry, guys. I fucked it up. We should have just made more jokes. How dare us have a real show about farting here? In my brain, I was. I was proud of us. It was great. We did a good job.

Dan Garner, where can the people find you? At DanGarnerNutrition on Instagram. And if you want more talk on gut health and farting, go to CoachGarner.com and check out the nutrition mentorship. There it is. Coach Travis Mash to CoachGarner.com and check out the nutrition mentorship. There it is. Coach Travis Mash. Mashlead.com or you can go to Mashlead Performance on Instagram. Doug Larson.

Oh, he's on mute. What he just said was go to Instagram at Douglas E. Larson. That's what he said. True story. I got men in my kitchen cutting my floor up, so I've been on mute for a chunk of this episode. I did not expect them to be here today. So that's why I was so quiet.

But yes, you can find me on Instagram, Douglas E. Larson. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are Barbell Shrugged, Barbell underscore Shrugged. And you can make sure you get over to Rapid Health Report. You can follow us on Instagram as well. Tons of Dan Garner spitting physiology on the socials. And as always, get over to RapidHealthReport.com. That is where you can see Dan Garner and Dr. Andy Galpin walking through lifestyle performance and lab analysis for our Rapid Health Optimization Program.

That's over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.