Realfoodology - 46: It Takes Guts with Dr. Asia Muhammad

Episode Date: July 14, 2021

The episode with Dr Asia Muhammad was so popular we brought her back to talk all about gut health!  Hippocrates famously said that all disease begins in the gut and he was right.We dive into why gut health is so important, the microbiome, why our guts have become so out of balance, foods to avoid, ways to support gut health and so much more! Show Links: https://www.instagram.com/dr.asiamuhammad/ https://www.asiamuhammad.com

On today's episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. in our gut, for example, right? The issue is when it grows out of proportion, all of us have E.coli in our gut. So all of us have C. diff in our gut. It's just the issue of it kind of growing out of proportion. If you're taking antibiotics, if you're eating certain foods that will feed bacteria. Hi guys, welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology podcast. I am your host, Courtney Swan. I am the creator behind Real Foodology, which is a food blog, an Instagram, and now of course, this podcast. If you love this podcast, please rate and review it. It helps me in the show so much. Thank you. Today's episode is with Dr. Asia Muhammad. You may recognize her from another podcast. I had her on recently to talk all about liver health. If you have not heard that podcast yet,

please go listen. It's such a good listen. I love this woman so much. I started following her last year on Instagram and she is just a wealth of knowledge and information. She really knows her stuff. And today she really knows her shit because we were talking all about poop and gut health and why we should care about it. We dive into what the microbiome is, what the key to weight loss, health and longevity is, what kind of symptoms may pop up if you're having any sort of issues with your gut, what the different gut disorders are, and what you can do about it. We also talk about foods and other things to avoid in order to protect your gut health, as well as foods that you should

incorporate into your diet that will help with gut health. This is a really great episode, guys. I have actually been meaning to make this particular episode since I started this podcast. I just needed to find the right person to do it. And I love Dr. Asia so much. I'm so glad that she came on to talk to me all about gut health because you know what, guys? It all starts and begins in the gut. As Hippocrates said, all disease begins in the gut. I just have a

little disclaimer. As always, these answers and this podcast are just for educational and informational purposes only. I am an integrative nutritionist, but I'm not a doctor. And I don't know you personally, I don't know what's going on in your body. So just know that this information on this podcast is not a sub for individual medical or mental health advice, and it doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. This is really exciting. Organifi now has kid stuff. They just released two kid products. One is called Easy Greens, and it's a refreshing green apple juice where kids will never know that it's packed with veggies. And the other one is called Protect. It's a delicious wild berry punch like the Kool-Aid that we used to have as a kid, but without any sugar. This is

really exciting. And if you've listened to the podcast for a while, you know that I'm a huge fan of Organifi and most specifically because every single product that they make is glyphosate residue free. So you know that you're going to be able to give these powders to your kids and know that they will be able to consume them safely without any glyphosate in it. So let's break down each one. The Easy Greens is a nourishing and delicious blend of superfoods and veggies that provides essential nutrients, probiotics, and digestive enzymes to bring balance to kids' growing bodies without fillers, additives, or junk. It helps to fill in nutritional gaps, aids in growth and development, supports digestive health, has a rich micronutrient profile, and includes digestive enzymes. This

would be a great way to sneak in greens for your little one without them actually knowing that it's healthy for them. And the second one, which is the wild berry punch similar to Kool-Aid, is called Protect, and it is to support your child's daily immune health with food-derived nutrients that work to strengthen their body's first line of defense. I know just through girlfriends of mine that have children that when your kids are going to school, going to daycare, they're coming home sick a lot more often just because they're getting exposed to different kids

and different viruses when they're out in the world playing with kids. So this would be a great way to help to support your little one's immune health. It's organic and it's also made with real whole food ingredients. It has a delicious berry taste and it's low sugar and it's gentle enough for kids to take every single day.

And I really love the ingredients in this one. It's orange and acerol cherry, which is a powerful source of vitamin C and antioxidants. Astragalus, elderberry and propolis. These are all really great for overall immune health. If you want to try the products that I talked about today or any of the Organifi products, go to Organifi.com slash realfoodology and use code realfoodology for 20% off. Again, that's Organifi. It's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I dot com slash realfoodology. Did you know that most cookware and appliances are made with

forever chemicals? Yes, that means your nonstick pans, your air fryers, your waffle makers, your blender could possibly have PFAS. And yes, even our beloved crockpots and pressure cookers. I have actually been talking about this for so long. Back in 2006, my mom came to my dorm room and made me get rid of all my nonstick pans because she was concerned about me being exposed to something called Teflon. Teflon is a coating that is used on nonstick pans and a lot of these appliances that I just named. So I've avoided Teflon, nonstick, PFA coated appliances, pots and pans, you name it for a very long time. And the only option for a very long time was just stainless steel pots and pans. So I was really

excited when a company like our place came out because they started creating really beautiful cookware and appliances that are like pieces of art. Every appliance that I have from our place, I legit want to store it on the counter. And I'm the type of person that does not want anything on my counter because I like it to look really just clean and minimal. But I'm so obsessed with all the ArtPlace products that I have so many of them displayed on my counter because they are legit pieces of art. ArtPlace is a mission-driven and female-founded brand that makes beautiful kitchen products that are healthy and sustainable. All their products are made without PFAS, which are the forever chemicals, and also made without PTFE, which is Teflon. If a company is not

outwardly stating that they don't use these chemicals, then if they are using nonstick coating on their appliances, they are absolutely using forever chemicals. And there's been increasing global scrutiny for their impact on the environment and our health. And recognizing this impact, the EU plans to prohibit PFAS by 2025. Our place has always been PFAS free and they offer durable toxin-free ceramic coatings, ensuring a healthy, safe cooking experience. And let me tell you, you guys, they are changing the game with non-toxic appliances. They have a blender, they have an air fryer, they have a crock pot, not to mention their amazing always pan. They have a perfect pot, which is just the perfect size for soups. And they also just came out with a cast iron that I'm loving as well.

And I more recently replaced all of the bowls and plates in my kitchen because I really needed an upgrade. My other ones were so old. So I got some from Our Place and they are so beautiful. The ceramics are beautiful. The colors are amazing. Like I said, everything is like a piece of art. If you want to try any of the products from Our place, go to from our place.com and enter my code real

foodology checkout to receive 10% off sitewide. That's from our place.com code real foodology. Our place offers a 100 day trial with free shipping and returns. As always talk to your doctor first. Hey, oh my God. I'm so happy to have you back, girl. I'm so happy to be back. I was really excited about the last conversation and this conversation. So. Oh, yay. Me too.

Yeah. We had such a great convo. So I'm very excited to dive into gut health. Let's just get right into it. Shall we? Yep. All right. So today's episode is going to be just all about gut health.

I want to really lay it out for everyone so they really understand why we should care so much about our gut health and the role that it plays in our health. Hippocrates really said it first and he said it the best, all disease begins in the gut. So for everyone listening, let's start out with just the very basics. Why is gut health so important? Why should we care? So gut health is crucial because you have extensive surface area for absorption of nutrients, minerals, vitamins, protein, carbs, all these components of our diet. But your gut also houses your immune system and that's through your pyrus patches and there's different like immune tissues

in the intestinal tract. Your gut is a source of primary source of inflammation in the body as well. And when you think about your body in terms of like from the root to the tuta, it's all one long tube in terms of connection. So what you're putting in is coming out. So the gut is crucial. And I think that with any chronic disease, there should be some like introspection where the gut's concerned. Yeah, absolutely. And there's also that direct connection between the gut and the brain through the vagus nerve, which I'm not sure everyone knows about that. Gut health is so fascinating because we've really only been discovering the real importance of it in the last, like, I would say like 15 years.

Yeah. And we discovered that connection between the vagus nerve, you know, that between the brain and the gut. And that really has shown a lot of light on mental health aspects as well. So the inflammation, like chronic inflammation in the gut can lead to mental disorders. And there's a direct connection there too. So when you look at some of the literature, even around like dysbiosis, you know, you see connections with anxiety, depression, even autism, right? And some of these like neurological manifestations of different diseases, you see connections with gut health, and you can tie correlations to people using antibiotics and the number of antibiotics somebody uses relative to the level of mental health disorder that they may

have. Yeah. Oh, it's so interesting. It really is wild to think about how pretty much almost everything really starts in the gut. Like basically any sort of ailment that someone could list off, I always say, first things first, let's look at your gut because it can be the key to weight loss, to longevity. If there's any sort of hormonal imbalance, there could be something going on in the gut as well. I want people to understand just how important gut health is. And, and so like, for example, there's a lot of symptoms that people may not even attribute to being an issue with their gut. Um, like for example, allergies, um, mood, diabetes, weight issues, cardiovascular disease, skin issues.

Sometimes people don't even know that there's like psoriasis or something going on. It could be connected to the gut. Yeah. So there are a lot of connections with gut and disease or disease and gut health. And I see a lot of like chronic autoimmune cases a lot. And I have like just the wildest, most random cases that some doctors just don't figure out or they run all the tests and they can't really figure out what the next step is patients have tried all the medications and we'll do a stool panel on these patients and they have like chronic inflammatory markers elevated in their gut that you don't typically see typically see them with like Crohn's or colitis but you don't expect to see them with non-Crohn's non-colitis

patients and I've had I can't even count how many patients I've had recently where they come in with like, I don't know, scleroderma or like other autoimmune issues, like peripheral neuropathies, like nerve issues. And they have like elevated calprotectin, which are like inflammatory markers in their gut. They have, I saw a case of somebody who just had IBS, right? Just like loose stool with alternating constipation. And they had a colonoscopy, it was normal. And we did a stool panel and they had elevated MMP9, which is another intestinal marker for inflammation. And I just did like a simple anti-inflammatory protocol and their stools were completely normal. Now we're going to repeat their inflammatory markers in the future to see kind of what their levels are at.

But I would bet money that they've normalized at this point. But you don't think to look at these things. And these are markers that conventional doctors will see and say, oh, let's do a colonoscopy. There's obviously inflammation there. But I think macroscopically, everything might look fine. But microscopically, there's inflammation that if you don't see it with a colonoscopy, you just don't see it.

And when you think about colonoscopies, they're taking biopsies of areas that look inflamed. So if it doesn't look inflamed, they're not going to biopsy it. So it doesn't really reveal if you have true inflammation or not. Yeah. Which is probably why oftentimes gut issues, they don't always look at the gut first because it may be that you're showing symptoms in other areas of your body and you don't even know that you have inflammation going on in your gut. Exactly. Exactly. And I had a patient, we did a stool test in and they have no stool issues at all. And they're like, my stools are perfect. And they had like, um, elevated zonulin, which is a marker for leaky gut. It's a loose marker. It's not like highly sensitive or specific, but it's

a marker we do use to look at leaky gut. So, um, they had elevated's not like highly sensitive or specific, but it's a marker we do use to look at leaky gut. So they had elevated zonulin, which is a leaky gut marker. They had elevated secretory IgA, which is another marker of leaky gut. IgA is like a security guard, I describe it as, in your intestinal lining. It kind of lays in the mucus layer. And so if you have like really elevated IgA, it means that something is irritating that mucus layer. And so if you have like really elevated IgA, it means that something is irritating that mucus layer, or you have a really thinned out mucus layer. So you have a higher concentration of these like immune proteins, which are stimulated either by some kind of like food component or bacterial component in the gut. And I saw this person who had no GI, no frank GI issues, and they had elevated zonulin, elevated IGA.

And their IGA was so high that I think the lab kept the value at a certain amount. They can't quantify or release information beyond a certain amount that they have not validated in their lab. So if it's above like a thousand or they just say a thousand. Right. But I think it was higher than that. So, you know, I don't know. I don't know where these tests are going because they're all obviously like cash pay. So I would love it if, you know, somehow every patient with chronic disease could have something done more in depth to assess their gut health. I think we'd see way more kind of chronic low-level inflammation in the intestinal tract. Yeah, absolutely.

So I want to hear this from you. I already know the answer, but why are we seeing so many gut issues? Why are we seeing issues of leaky gut and IBS and IBD? And oh, and also can you explain what leaky gut is for those listening that don't know what it is? Yeah. So leaky gut refers to increased intestinal permeability. Now, obviously you do need intestinal permeability for your food to be absorbed, right? But when it's increased, that means that other components that should not be getting across, bacterial antigens, inflammatory markers, inflammatory components from bacteria actually are pushing across the intestinal lining and getting into the system. And not necessarily like straight going into the bloodstream. It could be as simple as wreaking havoc on this immune

layer underneath your intestinal tract and then kind of causing this like chain effect, right? So when you have leaky gut, there's like three layers. There's the first layer, which is your mucus layer. Then you have your cell layer underneath that. And then you have like an immune cell layer underneath that. But the intestine is only one cell layer thick. So you think about your bone, it's like cell on top of cell on top of cell, which makes it so thick. If you think about your skin or so strong, think about your skin, same thing, cell on top of cell on top of cell. Your gut lining is just one cell layer. It's not like seven.

It's not six. It's just one cell layer. So it's really, really sensitive. And so you have a mucus layer that's the first protective layer that any of your food or bacteria kind of touches. And when that mucus layer is really thin, it kind of then starts to wear on the cell layer underneath. So that's increased intestinal permeability. I think why we're seeing so much like gut issues, it's multifactorial. I think it's our environment. I think it's stress. Stress has been associated with increased intestinal permeability. I think that it's stress. Stress has been associated with increased intestinal permeability.

I think that it's the foods that we're eating. You look at like gluten and wheat components, they have been shown in celiac and in non-celiac patients to disrupt the gut lining. You think about additives in foods, emulsifiers in foods that affect the gut lining. So I think it's multifactorial, but I do see in a lot of patients with leaky gut, I will take out like wheat and different food components to help, um, reduce the assault on their intestinal lining. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. Gluten is usually number one that people go to first, because that's kind of the one that seems to affect people the most. And then I would dive even deeper and say, um, you know, the inflammatory oils that we cook with a lot, like soybean and canola oil, um, grain for some people, not everyone, but grain can affect people sometimes beans, um, depending on like how sensitive your gut is.

And also too, um, is this goes back to the food component, but also spraying our food with all of these pesticides. Yeah, I know. Like glyphosate is a huge one as well. Like in terms of the gut peas roundup, like, you know, all these chemicals that are sprayed on food to keep the insects off that end up damaging our intestines and damaging our microbiome. Yeah, that's a, that's a huge one. And, you know, so many Americans eat produce, right? That is not organic. And even organic is kind of like what is organic. You have to know the type of organic food you're eating because now it doesn't seem too complicated to get an organic label to be stuck on your product. So there are different like certifications as well.

So it's tricky. You know, there's a lot of components that go into disrupting the gut. And I think that as much as you can, you have to be mindful of what you're putting in your body because all of those foods are definitely going to your gut. I mean, anything you put in your mouth is going to irritate your gut or either help your gut. Yeah, exactly. Well, and too, with the glyphosate, it's a known antibiotic. So because that's what it does with the plants, it kills off all the bugs. But then you think about it, we are made up of so much living bacteria. And when we're eating that food that kills off the bacteria bugs. But then you think about it. We are made up of so much living bacteria.

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know the microbiome is like a symbiotic relationship. There's bacteria. There are fungi. There are viruses there. They're just, they all live in a symbiotic way. And when one grows out of proportion to the other, that's when you start running into issues. But all of us have candida in our gut, for example, right? The issue is when it grows out of proportion.

All of us have E. coli in our gut. So all of us have C. diff in our gut. It's just an issue of it kind of growing out of proportion. All of us have E. coli in our gut. So all of us have C. diff in our gut. It's just an issue of it kind of growing out of proportion. If you're taking antibiotics, if you're eating certain foods that will feed bacteria. So yeah, absolutely. And just for people listening, this is not to vilify antibiotics. This is just to say that we over-prescribe them in the U.S. You know, like for example, we shouldn't be taking antibiotics for a cold because a cold is a virus and antibiotics are to kill off bacteria. So it's all about scaling back and really only taking antibiotics when you really, really need them and when it's a bacterial infection.

Because that's a lot of the issue, too, is that we're overprescribing antibiotics. Oh, that's 100%. You look at some of the literature around antibiotic prescriptions and it just seems like we continue to over-prescribe them. And now we're thinking about these antibiotic resistant infections in the future. Like how are we going to kind of kill off these new superbugs as they call them? What are some of the other issues? I kind of want to go down the line and just explain a little bit, all the different gut issues that we see. And maybe we can go into what people can do if they're listening and they're concerned they have this, maybe questions they can ask their doctor, kind of want to just give people a starting off point to really guide them into helping themselves and better, you know, better

their gut health. So you mentioned dysbiosis earlier, what exactly is dysbiosis? So dysbiosis is an imbalance in types of bacteria in the gut. So it could be good bacteria, bad bacteria, right? When you have dysbiosis, it usually refers to more so too much bad bacteria or problematic bacteria, not necessarily pathogenic bacteria. Pathogenic would be like if you have like a Shigella or a Campylobacter or like an E. coli infection that's causing bloody diarrhea. You can have dysbiosis and have it for years and decades. You couldn't really have like a pathogenic bacteria, like a Shigella toxin related bacteria where you're having bloody diarrhea every day for years. You end up being really dehydrated or dying, right? So dysbiosis is

something you can live with for decades and not really know it or have these other non-GI or GI symptoms or diseases that are associated with dysbiosis. Okay. So how would someone know that they have dysbiosis? Like candida overgrowth would be an example of dysbiosis, right? Exactly. Candida overgrowth, like if you have certain types of like bacterial families, you wouldn't really know unless you did like a functional stool test because the common stool test that you have run through insurance typically checks for like just pathogenic bacteria just to see if you, and usually you don't get antibiotics for those. A lot of those are self-limited. They go away on their own. But then you do like an OVNP for parasites, but it doesn't really check for

all parasites. So you might be like better off finding a functional medicine practitioner and having a stool panel run. If you're concerned about dysbiosis, it'll list out all the different bacterial families and kind of where your concentrations may lie in that picture. Okay. Oh, and before we go any further, because we've been talking about the microbiome a lot, I just want to make sure we cover all bases for anyone listening that is unaware of the microbiome. Hopefully by now, most of my audience knows about the microbiome and what it is, but can we explain it a little bit and you know, the good and bad bacteria balance? So the microbiome is the most magical place in the world. So microbiome is this bacterial world in your gut.

And it's from the small intestine to the large intestine. Your small intestine should technically be sterile. There's not a lot of bacteria in the upper part of your small intestine. There is some. Most of the bacteria in your gut starts at your terminal ileum, which is the very last part of your small intestine. And it progresses through your entire colon. So most of the bacteria in your gut is going to be in your large intestine, not your small intestine.

So this is your microbiome. It's the bacteria that are there. It's different. It's usually just the bacteria. So you have like your microbiome, which they call like the fungal biome. But usually the microbiome just really refers to like the bacterial aspect of your gut. So three to four pounds of your body weight is just bacteria in your gut, and that usually the microbiome just really refers to like the bacterial aspect of your gut. So three to four pounds of your body weight is just bacteria in your gut. And that's your microbiome. And it functions, it has many different functions, anti-inflammatory functions,

cell building functions. It has vitamin producing functions, fiber breakdown function as well to produce butyric acid, which is like an energy cell for the colon. So it's really important. And it's also supplements your immune system. And it also makes our happy hormones serotonin. Yeah, it does. It makes hormones. It makes some of your brain chemicals as well. Yeah. So interesting. And again, that's where that brain gut connection comes into play. And I think it's so interesting talking about the microbiome and hearing people talk about bacteria in a good light, because, you know, growing up,

we were always told bacteria is so bad. It's going to kill you. You want to clean off. I mean, we're even talking about this right now during these times where everyone's like, spray everything down, sterilize everything. And it is driving me crazy because I'm like, stop, stop sterilizing everything because you're going to kill up all the good bugs that we need. Those bugs keep us healthy. We need them. They totally keep us healthy. And if you think about it from a numbers perspective, we're mostly bacteria more than we are cells. We're mostly bacteria organisms, which is kind of cool if you think about it. There's new literature coming out now and they're saying like, well, they used to say we have more bacteria in our gut than we have body cells. Now they're saying that we probably have an equal amount of bacteria in our gut as we have body

cells, which is equally as cool, right? Because you can't really see the bacteria because they're smaller than our human cells. But to know that we have so much bacteria there that it matches our kind of cellular makeup, you know, it's really impressive. Yeah, it's really wild. And I think too, that those bacteria drive a lot of things in our body and our body function. I mean, they even drive cravings sometimes, like if you're really overly craving sugar, that could be a candida overgrowth because those little bugs are like fetus sugar. Yeah. I mean, they really do. They produce their own chemicals and those chemicals do get secreted into the system and they do affect us. So it's really impressive what the, what the microbiome

is able to do in terms of health and guiding our decisions and our choices. Yeah, it's pretty wild. Mm-hmm. It is. Oh, God. I love talking about the gut. Me too. It's so interesting.

It really is so interesting. And, like, now they're, like, doing fecal transplants. And it's, like, all the new rage. And I remember, like, I was, like, on this before. Everybody, I'm just kidding. No, but. I love it. I wasn't doing them or anything. But when I was in residency, I had like patients who wanted to do them. I had this really cool Crohn's case and this person had like 30 stools a day, right? So Crohn's is inflammatory bowel disease. It's an autoimmune disease where your immune system

pretty much attacks your intestines. Crohn's affects your small intestines mostly, whereas colitis affects the large intestines. Actually Crohn's can affect your entire GI from the mouth to the bottom end. You can have mouth ulcers, you can have esophageal ulcers, you can have stomach ulcers, you can have ulcers in your small intestine. Crohn's is really the large intestine only. It doesn't really go upwards beyond that. So I had this patient who had Crohn's and Crohn's is kind of worse. In terms of the inflammatory bowel diseases, Crohn's is kind of worse than colitis. Because colitis is the colon, but Crohn's can affect the entire GI tract and Crohn's will go through the entire wall of the GI tract. And it can actually form fistulas where you start forming these like funnels out to your skin.

And you have like kind of just like drainage of bacteria through your you can like literally they'll they'll form two through the vagina and you'll have like funnels and they're they're called fistula fistulizing disease it's pretty severe Crohn's stage and I've seen patients who've had these things where they'll start coming out right above the like the anal canal you'll have these little bitty tiny holes and basically the intestinal tract is forming this little tunnel out pushing bacteria out. It's wild. So, you know, I've seen those types of patients. And when you have fistulizing disease, it's pretty much the most severe Crohn's. And you get on these really wild, intense medications.

And they work sometimes. Sometimes they don't work. But I had this case of this lady who had Crohn's. It was pretty severe, 30 stools a day. She was a nurse. Unreal. I know. So she, pretty much urgency. Got to go, got to go now. She was a nurse. So she couldn't really, I know. So she, but pretty much urgency,

got to go, got to go now, go to the bathroom. There's either liquid coming out or mucus coming out or some stool. And she was always willing to try whatever. So we did some really cool protocols and I work with MDs and they're like, whatever, you know, do whatever, you know, and they were really cool about it too. So we, she wanted to try fecal transplants and I'm like, yeah, I want to try it too. So she pretty much, when you do a fecal transplant, which I'm not, this is not how to do, how you do a fecal transplant in case anybody out there is listening, like, oh, let me write this down and do a fecal transplant. Please don't do this. Don't try this at home. She pretty much, when you do a fecal transplant, you want to either have like donor stool that's extremely like relatively comparable in terms of like your demographics.

But you also want to make sure or you want to ensure if you can't find like donor stool, stool that's like close to you. So either like somebody that lives with you or a family member that's close to you. So she actually found her, her kids had GI issues. So she didn't use their stools, but she would use her, I think her niece's stool. And so her niece would poop and she poopy scoopy it out of the toilet and freeze it. And she's like blending up her, you know, her husband's like making his smoothie in the morning.

He's blending her. I hope she had a special blender for that. She did. She had a special blender for that. She did. She had a special blender. So she's blending up her like poop and saline and she does an enema every morning. And she literally went from 30 stools a day to one stool a day. Formed stool. Wow.

Exactly. So there's something there in regards to just changing the bacterial makeup completely. Because basically a fecal transplant is taking somebody else's bacteria and putting it in your intestinal tract so there's something huge to be said there in terms of the power of the microbiome and the amount of immune regulation because Crohn's is an autoimmune disease so you know she she didn't continue it for a long time it wasn't really sustainable with her lifestyle but you can actually get ordered like fecal capsules now from some company that you can swallow, which just seems a little bit strange to me, to kind of repopulate the microbiome. They're supposed to survive the stomach acid and survive the small intestine.

I'm not sure if you have to actually have them endoscopically placed, like with the camera, like knock you out and take a device and put them down there. I think you can swallow them from last I remember. That's so interesting. Yeah, I was going gonna ask how they got past the gastric stomach yeah they're probably enteric coated so they don't break open there but um they they're really recommended or used i think in c-diff patients patients who have really recurrent nasty c-diff infections that's who primarily uses fecal transplants you don't really see any gi doctor doing them for Crohn's or colitis patients because if you can do it with a colonoscopy, you'll have to go take the stool

sample, go in with a colonoscopy. And as you leave, you deposit the stool in the colon. So that's how they do it with a colonoscopy. You can do it with an enema as well. That's so interesting. I've heard about these, but I never knew that someone could do it at home. Although again, listening, please don't try this at home. Do it under the supervision of a doctor. Because you could also severely mess up your gut, too. So you don't want to do that. But that's really wild. Yeah, I mean, when I was in school, we were shown a couple studies that I thought were so interesting.

They did them in rats. And then they also did it, there was a study of these two twins. And one was overweight and one was really thin and they took the, I believe they did it backwards where they took the, um, the twin stool that was overweight and put it in the one that was thin and then she gained a bunch of weight. Yep. And then there's also studies too, where, you know, vice versa. Um, they take someone who is really overweight and they do a fecal transplant from someone that's a lot thinner in body type and they actually lose weight. It's really wild. Yeah. I mean, it just goes to show,

like I said, the power of the microbiome and it's not only about gut health and, you know, having good stools, you know, there's a huge metabolic piece to the microbiome that it's understudied or just the literature is just starting to burgeon around these topics. So yeah. Yeah. It's really wild. It's really unfolding in front of our very eyes at the moment. I know. It's a wonderful time to be alive in terms of GI research.

It really is. Yeah. It also, I don't know if you had this, if it had this effect on you, but when I was in school and learning about all this, and as this has all been coming out, I realized just how much we don't know about the body. There's so much we have no idea about. I know. Legit. There's this lab company that always comes out with these new cool tests. I'm like, oh, I need to run this on everybody. Like I want to see everything and everybody. I want all the information. There's so much to know. There's so much to know. And there's, like I said,

there's so much that we don't know, which is really wild and, um, really intriguing to think about, but also makes me a little nervous. Cause I'm like, you know, we have people running around, especially, well, I don't want to vilify doctors, but a lot of people running around just pretending and acting as though we know everything. And then it's set in stone and we forget, we don't know a lot. Yeah, I know. You know, I do recall working with this one doctor and he was an MD and we would do these functional like stool tests and he would just say, look, I don't know anything about this. I just never learned this stuff. You know, he was really humble about it. He was honest. Like, I just don't know. It's like, I think this technology is far ahead of what I learned,

you know, and he wasn't willing to actually learn anything else. But he was just honest, like, look, I don't know what this is, you figure you work with these patients. And so, you know, I could applaud that. But some doctors are really dismissive. And they're like, well, these tests don't mean anything. They're not really as valid as X, Y, and Z. But you know how many standard tests that miss, or, you know, get the results wrong, or they're not interpreted correctly. So exactly. Well, so for people listening and they're like, OK, now we really understand how important gut health is. What are let's lay out, first of all, things that they should avoid for a healthy gut. And then we can go into things that they can do that will improve their gut health.

So I typically will have people avoid common food sensitivity. So I'll typically take people off of wheat, dairy, gluten, dairy, soy, corn. Let's see. And any other foods that bother their gut, I'll just have them stop those as well. Like all processed foods, they contain so many additives that can affect the gut. I pretty much recommend like whole food, plant-based diet or quality meat diet. Like if you're doing meats like grass fed type products while caught. Um, so that's where I start. Like if you got to read it, don't eat it. It's my really basic, what I say. I love that. If you got to read it, don't eat it. Yeah. I think I might've even said this in the last podcast, but my rule that I tell everyone is if you're looking at that ingredient label and you

could technically buy all those ingredients that are listed and make this yourself at home, then it's free game. But if there's a bunch of additives in there that you're like, I don't even know where I would buy this. Put the food back. Exactly. Like I'll do like pastas like tonight I had a lentil pasta and it had lentil pasta with I don't even know like cauliflower flour which I'd never know was a thing but like you know I can buy both of those you know what I mean and cook both of those so I think I like that exactly yeah and again I remind people all the time this doesn't mean you actually have to make it it just means that it's free game if you could, you know? Okay.

So we, things to avoid. I think I already said this, but soybean oil, corn oil. Yep. Antibiotics as well. Like we said before, unless if they're really, really needed again, not vilifying them. Just, we don't need to take them as often as we do. I also heard this the other day that I hadn't heard yet, but anti-inflammatory is like Aleve, Advil, and Aspirin. Yes, they will knock, they will tear your gut up. I think I've been

like meaning to do a post on this and I just haven't, but literally they actually contribute to leaky gut. They increase intestinal permeability. And some of them are associated also with like stomach ulcers just because they wear out the lining of the tummy. So, you know, if you take them, you should be cautious of the amount you're taking and why you're actually taking them. A lot of times doctors will prescribe aspirin as like kind of stroke prevention for people at a certain age group, which I don't really agree with that. But, you know, I think that you have to really be present in your own healthcare and, you know, question your doctors, you know, and if you, you know, can see if try to add a functional medicine doctor to your team, just to kind of

get some added opinions on your care in regards to taking those like long-term. But when it comes to apiprofen, Aleve, aspirin, Advil, all of those medications, I am not an advocate in any form because they do damage the gut so much I just had a case recently where somebody was given meloxicam which is a type of NSAID medication typically given for like musculoskeletal related issues and they took it and had like GI bleeding and the doctor told them oh if you take this and you have GI bleeding just stop taking it I was like oh so if you don't have GI bleeding you can stop taking it. I was like, Oh, so if you don't have GI bleeding, you can keep taking it. Exactly. So, you know, you know, I think if it's something that it's necessary, I guess it's necessary, but, um, there are so many wonderful anti-inflammatory

alternatives that I love to recommend for people to, to avoid the inset family. Yeah. Well, let's name a couple of those. Yeah. So I love white willow bark. I love Boswellia. Turmeric is also a great one. It's a lot of the robust data around that one. Um, what else do I use? I pretty much use a quercetin is a really potent one as well. So I'll do ginger also. So there's a really cool, like different anti-inflammatory formulas you can use and it typically they typically will have like turmeric um ginger boswellia quercetin and white willow bark so i would say check for those five botanicals also i love really great quality omega so fish oils are really good anti-inflammatories or some really cool, um, antioxidant, anti-inflammatories like

alpha-poic acid that I love, love, love. Um, yeah, I take so many things just so I could keep going, but I'm just going to stop there. No, I love it. And I want people listening to encourage them to, if you're struggling with headaches, migraines on a daily basis, or pretty frequently, and you find yourself having to take Aleve Advil, get to the root cause of what's causing those, you know, instead of just putting a Band-Aid on it. And then if you're like me and you get the occasional hangover, instead of taking Advil, I take something called Hilma.

Tension, really? Have you heard of that brand? Yeah. Do you like it? I actually really like it. And as you were talking, I was just looking it up cause I wanted to see what ingredients are in there. And they have two things in there that you listed white willow bark and Boswellia. Stop it. Yeah. I love that. I know. And I really like them. And you know what? Also, I don't know. I I've always been this way. I don't like taking Advil and stuff like that after I've been drinking because I know it's really hard on the liver as well.

And my mindset is like, okay, I've already like put some strain on my liver with alcohol. The last thing I want to do is put more strain on it. So I take things like Hilma. I chug coconut water. I chug electrolytes. I get these little like sugar-free electrolytes from this brand Ultima. And that's my solution to a hangover. And then if it's still really bothering me that much, I mean, I know I can't get everyone on

board with this mentality, but I'm kind of like, you know what, Courtney, you did this to yourself. You're just going to have to power through it, you know? I love all those remedies though. That sounds amazing. Have you ever done like an IV after? I'm just curious. I actually have. Yeah. Which, you know, I, I want to say I recognize that not everyone can do that. It's definitely a privilege to get that. But I have, I've gone to a place and gotten an IV before and it really does help. So if you're in a position where you can get an IV, um, I feel fortunate that I live in LA and there's a lot of like clinics and stuff you can go to that have them. It's hard to find it in Missouri. I bet. Yeah. That would probably be harder.

Yeah. Let's see. Before we go. Okay. So I also want to dive into foods and things that can help people in their guts. Okay. So when it comes to foods that help with the gut. So for the mucus layer, I typically will recommend like really good quality fats.

I recommend like different types of botanicals. So bilberry and aronia berry have actually been shown to upregulate the gene that produces mucus in the gut. So those are two that I'll recommend and you can just get those anywhere. I typically recommend organic branches, add them to smoothies. I love like probiotics for the gut. Like I know a lot of people will say like, oh, you don't need them. But you know, there's so much wonderful literature around probiotics actually helping to improve your intestinal barrier.

So there are brands that I love for probiotic support. And I really do high dose probiotics with patients. I don't really do low-dose. I really just throw the kitchen sink at them, especially if they're really chronically sick. I just find that low doses don't really touch anything. I have patients who take probiotics. I do a stool panel on them, and there's no probiotic in their stool while they're taking the probiotic. So I just think it's not potent enough.

And so, yeah. So I'll do really high doses of probiotic. When I say high doses, like a lot of over-the-counter, I see like 50 billion or like 100 billion. Like I'll do 900 billion or like trillion amounts, like in one kind of setting. The worst thing I've ever seen happen, which is nothing, I've never seen anything happen. And I've seen thousands of GI patients. So sometimes if you have like really immunocompromised people, you don't give them high amounts of probiotics. I don't really

know what the reasoning is, but if you look at some of the literature, you'll find like one or two cases of somebody taking like really high dose probiotics and they have some immunocompromised position. And there's an issue that they find with their probiotics. But like I said, that's been like one or two documented cases and I'm not sure if it's actually tied to probiotics. So that is something I will do just so people know, like I do do high-dose probiotics. I do fiber-rich diets because fiber breaks down into butyric acid, which is a really potent anti-inflammatory chemical in the gut. I see across the board patients who have autoimmune chronic diseases, low butyric acid, low short-chain fatty acids. Let's see.

Yeah, so I do a lot of like food, botanicals. What botanicals do I use? I don't know if I use a lot of botanicals for like leaky gut specifically, but for gut health, I will use like geranium to help with like loose stools. It's an astringent botanical. So kind of like dries things out. I will use peppermint for people who have like IBS, like spasms. There's a medication we give called Bento or Dicyclamine, which is an anti-spasmodic and I'll give usually enteric coated peppermint instead. It has the same effect. Um, let's see. I love ginger for the gut. I mean, love, love, love ginger for the gut. There's a ton. You may keep going. Yeah. Well, let's list off some. Okay. So I actually, I have a couple of questions about the probiotic thing that you said. So I personally

take between 50 and a hundred billion a day. Um, and I've been doing that for a long time when I was in college, sorry for all your ears listening right now, but I had chronic yeast infections. And when I started taking 50 billion probiotics a day, I've never had an issue with it since. Nice. Which brand do you like? So I've been taking, I know this is a little controversial in the health world now, but I've just been taking them forever and I really like them. I've been taking the doctor formulated garden of life ones, the women's health. Um, I really like them. It was a, I forgot the doctor now that did, uh, the collaboration with them, but I love him.

And I know a lot of people are upset that Nestle bought Garden of Life, but I've used their products for a long time. Listen, if the product works for you and it's been working for you, I wouldn't switch it up to a different brand. Yeah. Well, because I can tell you that I have tried in the past and it didn't fare so well. So that is one thing that really helps just keep the pH balance down there for me. Nice. I often will recommend probiotics for women with chronic

yeast infection and I find it to them to work really well. So I do that. And one other product that I think is a bomb. So, um, yes, probiotics are wonderful. Yeah. And outside of taking them in pill form, people can also have probiotic rich foods. So like cultured yogurts. I like to do coconut yogurt just because I don't really like to recommend dairy to a lot of people. Fermented foods like sauerkraut and pickles and miso. There's kimchi. I love kimchi. It's so good. Probiotics are so good. My favorite thing to do is kimchi first thing in the morning, which is probably not the best. But it's honestly so good. And I don't even eat in the morning.

If I do, it's like I want some probiotic food, like some sauerkraut or something. Yeah. I mean, that sounds good. There's that one brand, Farmhouse Culture, that makes sauerkraut shots. And I was doing those for a while in the morning. They're really good. It tastes like pickle juice. Yes. They're so good. Yeah. Yeah. They have different flavors, but the pickle was, that's always my favorite too. I love it. Cause I am that weirdo that will drink the pickle juice. So, Oh, I love pickle juice. What are you talking about? Right. It's so good. It is good.

There's also another important thing that we haven't covered yet, which is prebiotic foods. Yeah, so prebiotics. So I always explain it like this. So probiotics, if you had a garden, probiotics would be like putting fresh new dirt on your garden that already has dirt. Prebiotics would be like putting fertilizer on your old dirt, right? You're trying to like kind of renew, refresh what you have. So prebiotic foods are things that feed the bacteria there in the gut. I love recommending prebiotic foods for patients. It's, I typically recommend like green banana flour, which you can get anywhere.

And I'll recommend like different oat bran, just different things to help feed the bacteria down there. I mean, like even some types of like rices, if you cook them and cool them, you know, the starch molecule kind of changes and it becomes a prebiotic fiber, which is so cool. Like beans and like lentils have prebiotic properties to them. So I always recommend those in patients who have like low butyric acid on a stool test, it'll help feed their butyric acid and also change their bacterial makeup in the gut. Yeah. Wait, let's talk about that for a second. The rice thing, because when I learned this in school, I was like, like mind blown. Um, and for people

listening, I don't want to just skim over it. So when you heat up rice and then you let it cool in the fridge and then you heat it up again, every single time you cool it, then heat it, cool it, then heat it. Um, it adds on a little bit more of that. What is the name of that starch? I'm forgetting right now, but basically it builds up a specific type of starch and the more you do it, the more of it, it builds up and you can do this with pasta too. Yep. And so what I recommend people do is make a huge batch of rice the beginning of the week, and then just keep heating it up and keep cooling it all week as you eat it. And it's going to create that really good starch for you. That's

a great prebiotic that will feed your gut bacteria. Love it. Love it. Yay. There's also apples, which are great. Artichokes, asparagus, dandelion greens, which we talked about last time that are great for the liver. I love dandelion greens. They're so good. They're so wonderfully bitter. I know. And they're so good for us too. They really are. There's a groundhog in my back that lives in my backyard and he eats my dandelions. I'm like, no, those are my dandelions. And he eats my violets, which are edible. And I'm just so annoyed with him, you know, leave my liver. God, but that's so cute. It's hard to be mad at him.

I know. I know. I'm like, well, I'm sure his liver is really healthy. So. Right. He's doing great. That's so funny. Um, and then I guess the last thing we need to go over is fiber, rich fruits and vegetables. So there are different types of fibers. They're insoluble fibers of soluble fibers. So insoluble fibers, we think of as like insoluble, right? They're not kind of like breaking down in a sense. I typically recommend like more insoluble like fibers for patients who have like the loose stool picture versus soluble fibers, people who have like constipation style picture. So soluble fibers, I always thought of as I have this doctor who's a proctologist, which is a doctor that like specializes in like more rectal area versus like a colon doctor. And he would always give soluble fibers to his patients who had hemorrhoids because it would basically hold the water in the colon so that the stool is more hydrated. And as it passes out, it's not like a dry heart stool and you're not straining,

you're not irritating the hemorrhoid. Right. So he'd always recommend like different types of fiber powders, like Benafiber, which is one that helps with that. But you can also do like fiber rich foods like your peaches, pears, prunes, plums, which will hold the water in the colon. So your stools are more hydrated. And when you're doing any fiber powder, you want to take it around the food. You never want to take empty fiber powder. It's like, what's the point? You know, you want to make sure you're taking it around what you're eating. So it's coming out with the food. So yeah, fiber rich fruits and vegetables. Like I love like, like salads are a great way to get like tons of fiber in. You can like lettuce and then, or arugula, bok choy, whatever, and just kind of throw other vegetables in as well.

So I think that, you know, the recommended serving is five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables every day. And one serving is like a half a cup. Most people don't get that. We're just busy. We don't have time. You know, we don't think we don't have time, but you can always sneak it in with the smoothie or salad or just make a big batch of vegetables on the weekend, which is what I do, and just scoop some out every night and eat it. I love that. That's great. And then there's also the beans, lentils, stuff like that. Those are great for fiber if they don't bother you.

Well, before we go, for anyone listening that is really struggling and trying to figure out kind of where to start, I know that there's a lot of different ways that they could start, but what would be kind of just something simple that people, maybe a test they could ask their doctor, or maybe just some simple questions they could ask just to start kind of diving into this, if they think they might have a problem. If you think you have a problem, I would say to rule out inflammation,

you can always ask for Calprotectin, which should be covered by insurance if you have GI issues. It's C-A-L-P-R-O-T-E-C-T-I-N, calprotectin. That's one that's commonly run. Also, a fecal lactoferrin is another stool marker for inflammation. It's like L-A-C-T-O-F-E-R-R-I-N, lactoferrin. Those are two to rule out inflammation. You can also ask for like a standard stool panel, but it's not going to give you any information on dysbiosis.

Zonulin is another marker that you can have performed, but it's not covered by like, I don't think Quest or LabCorp even has a zonulin test at this point. But you may consider asking for like a functional stool test. It's a test you, it's a kit you take home and submit a stool sample, then it'll come back with all of these results. You can also ask for a stool elastase enzyme from your doctor that'll look at your exocrine pancreatic function to basically see if your pancreas is pushing out enough enzymes to break down your lipids,

starches, and your fats in your diet. So if your elastase enzyme is really low, it points to an issue with pancreatic function, which could be the cause of like loose stool, bloating, and diarrhea that you may be having. So a lot of times doctors miss those. I had a patient once in residency who had the worst diarrhea and nobody could figure out what was going on. The doctors were like, go see Dr. Muhammad. Maybe she'll give you some herbs or something. They didn't know. And so this patient came and saw me and I just gave him some we have some samples of some pancreatic enzyme drug and I gave it to them and overnight the stools are normal right so it's not you would think you would go to the doctor and they would run all the tests

related to loose stool but they don't they're like oh just IBS here take this medication but it wasn't IBS it was pancreatic insufficiency. That's happened a lot, actually. And so I would say pancreatic insufficiency rule out, have that ruled out. Inflammation, have that ruled out. Make sure you have celiac disease ruled out. A lot of doctors miss it. I had a kid once who was 21. He came in to see us because his mom just thought he had some GI issue because he had like a lot of like skin acne over his entire body, or she thought it was skin acne. This poor kid, like his social life was gone. And he just, you know, was embarrassed, you know, to be around friends and people with his skin,

just kind of always having these breakouts. And he's seen dermatologists since he was a baby. Nobody thought to run celiac testing on this kid, because there's a dermatological manifestation of celiac called dermatitis herpetiformis. He had like testa i mean i'm like topical steroid cream topical antibiotics like for decades of his life he comes in to see us and i was like let's just run celiac i don't know why i even thought about that what i know why i

thought about it but ran it and he's like celiac the kid stops eating wheat his life is normal now he has a social life and i think i did some miracle but I didn't. I just told him you can't have wheat anymore. You can't have gluten. He's like, I'm down for it. His skin cleared up within a month. Wow. Exactly. So doctors don't always run the test that you would think they would run to rule out a very well-known disease. So just, you know, question your doctor, ask for other tests, um, and just be persistent. Yeah, and I'm so glad that you brought up that point. That's why I always try to encourage people to advocate for themselves. You know, it should be a working relationship where you work with your doctor. Obviously, your doctor is very knowledgeable in the human body, but you are

the expert in your own body. You know, and if you're going to, and that's why I always feel like, and no one's ever going to go to bat for you. Like you are for you and your health. Exactly. And that's why it's so important. And that's why, you know, I wanted to give people some, some sort of things like this, like to be able to ask their doctor so that they know what to even ask for, because maybe their doctor hasn't thought of even testing it. Like you just said, you know, and doctors are so busy. They're seeing so many patients a day. It like they probably are just they're using tons of diarrhea cases and most of the patients improve on this drug they're more likely the front of their mind is going to think

you know let's try this drug out yeah and it is what it is i remember seeing a lady who had infertility and she had celiac disease sometimes with celiac the only manifestation is infertility you don't have any gi issues you don't have any GI issues. You don't have any skin issues. You don't have anything besides infertility. Wow. That's so interesting. I've never heard that about celiac. Yep. Yeah. So we tested her celiac, positive celiac, and I don't, she came in for something unrelated, but she'd also had like fertility issues. And so we just checked her for celiac and she has celiac disease. So you look at the literature, that's a manifestation of celiac disease, infertility. That's so interesting. I never knew that. Wow. Well, hopefully that will help some people listening too. Yeah. Good test. I know that I said that was my last question,

but I have one more because I know I get a lot of questions about this on my Instagram, bloating. I have so many people write me in the DMs and say, what do I do about bloating? How do I get to the root of this? Like what foods can I eat? What can I take? And I never, I always kind of tell them the same thing. I'm like, you got to just start figuring out what food allergies you might have, get some testing done if you can, because it can be so many different things. What would your advice be to someone? I'm going to do a post tonight on bloating because you're like the second person today that's mentioned that. So I think the universe is like do the post.

Okay. Bloating is my favorite thing. One of my favorite things about the gut in terms of helping people with, because there's so many things that can cause bloating. And so you think about bloating, you think about gas production, right? So the bacteria there are producing gas. I typically always with chronic bloating want to rule out SIBO small intestine bacteria overgrowth where you have too much bacteria accumulating in your small intestine and it leads to excessive

gas production and a ton of bloating and patients will say they look like six months pregnant after they eat a meal their stomach just bloats so much so that's a breath test you can have done most doctors will actually GI doctors run that test. So you may just ask your GI doctor if you can get a SIBO breath test performed. Also, I see it with like IBS. Number one cause of gas and bloating is actually constipation. Because if you have bacteria in your gut, I mean stool in your gut that's just hanging out, the bacteria like to eat the stool. It's like dessert for them. So they just eat on it and produce tons of bacteria, gas, and you're bloated. So if you're, you know, really bloated, first

things first, you know, have a bowel movement. And there are many ways you can do that and assist it over the counter or just natural ways, right? Try to get your system cleaned out and like observe the bloating has gone away. If it's not, I would say next step would be check for SIBO. If it's not SIBO, I would say it'd be worthwhile having, if it's like really severe or colonoscopy or some kind of imaging, just to be, give you a piece of my image and there's nothing going on. But in regards to bloating, I've never, I've not seen a bloating case that I've not helped. Wow. I will say that. Yeah. And so sometimes this, I have this one wild case that I did not know what it was.

Actually, they did improve on a SIBO diet, but something just did not feel right to me. And I think it was just the constitution of the person. They just looked sick. And I don't know how to describe it. Their, their energy level was like more sunken and their skin had this like more pallor to, or pallor to their skin and just like a lack of like vitality and I just didn't feel right just doing diet the patient came in I just changed their diet and then they came back like it's better but it's still there I'm like okay have you had any ultrasound done so this other MD or this MD referred her to me and I thought well I'm sure they did all the work up they did all the tests right they didn't so I just said let's an ultrasound. Let's get some jelly on the belly. See what your gallbladder

looks like. Cause you're going to have gallstones that have bloating. And so ultrasound said that there was perihepatic fluid around the liver, which hepatic is liver. And I'd never, ever seen that finding. So I had called up the MD and I was like, Hey, what does this mean? I don't know what this means. And he's like, usually if you see fluid around the liver, it's coming from somewhere else. He's like, so check her reproductive system. So we did like pelvic ultrasound, transvaginal ultrasound, ovarian cancer. Wow. Yeah. So bloating is not just GI. It could be referred from somewhere else. So if you're doing all the GI stuff, you may just make sure you're up to date on your kind of women's health, you know, and just talk to your OB or your guy about this. Cause it could be fibroids. It could be something else going on.

It could be a mass there. That's really, really rare, but you just never know. Yeah. You just never know. Some of it too is water retention, depending on where you are in your cycle too. A hundred percent. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be another thing. Well, this conversation was so amazing. Thank you so much for coming back for everyone listening. Where can they find you? So you can find me, my website is www.asiamuhammad.com. A S I A M U-M-A-D.com. Or my Instagram is just Dr. Sorry, I was trying to say dot, Dr. Dot, D-R dot, Asia Muhammad. A-S-I-A-M-U-H-A-M-M-A-D.

Awesome. Definitely go give her a follow, guys. She is a great follow on Instagram. Thank you. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming back on. Thanks for having me. This is so fun. So fun. I'll have to get you back on for another topic. Yeah, let's do it.

Thanks for listening to today's episode of the Real Foodology podcast. If you liked this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know. This is a resident media production produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Chris McCone. The theme song is called Heaven by the amazing singer Georgie, spelled with a J. Love you guys so much. See you next week. Thank you. you