The Dr. Hyman Show - The Best Foods To Heal The Gut

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. We have massively messed up our guts. We have to really understand the gut is central to our health. How do you hit the reset button on your gut? In my practice, I always look at the gut first. When someone's gut is messed up, it can impact their overall health, their mood, energy levels, skin, digestion, and everything in between. I always thought I did a pretty good job at taking care of my own gut,

Starting point is 00:00:25 but when I got really sick a few years ago from mold poisoning, a root canal gone wrong, an antibiotic, and a few other insults, I realized that I had a lot of gut healing to do. I talked to S-Burson Gut Health, read a ton of new research on the microbiome, and figured out a way to heal my body using three critical things,

Starting point is 00:00:42 prebiotics, probiotics, and polyphenols. I created a multivitamin for the gut and you can't keep that information yourself. So I put it all together into a simple daily product that anyone can take and it's called Gut Food. This product uses five powerful ingredients at clinically validated dosages to help reduce inflammation, support the growth of beneficial gut bacteria, improve digestion and bloating, and support mood and energy. I really believe this is the next frontier of gut health. Just like we take a multivitamin and mineral to give our bodies the nutrients we need, our gut also requires specific ingredients to thrive. You can learn more about gut food and check it out at gutfood.com. One of the most important tools I have for helping my patients

Starting point is 00:01:23 optimize their health is testing. And that is why I love what Rupa Health is doing. Functional medicine testing can require placing orders with lots of different labs. And it can kind of get really complicated for doctors and their patients to easily access results and keep track of everything. But Rupa Health has totally streamlined that process. Looking at hormones, organic acids, nutrient levels, inflammatory factors, gut bacteria, and so many other internal variables can help us find the most effective path to health and healing. I'm really excited about that now, and I can finally take advantage of these tests without the hassle of the confusion of going through so many multiple labs.

Starting point is 00:02:00 Rupa Health is the place for functional medicine practitioners to access more than 2,000 specialty lab tests from over 20 labs like Dutch, Vibrant America, Genova, Great Plains, and more. It's 90% faster, letting you simplify the process of getting you the functional tests that you need and giving you more time to focus on your patients. This is really a much-needed option

Starting point is 00:02:21 in the functional medicine space, and it means better service for you and your patients. You can check it out with a free live demo, with a Q&A, or create an account at rupahealth.com. That's R-U-P-A health dot com. This episode is sponsored by ButcherBox. You probably heard me talk about ButcherBox before because they've revolutionized the process of buying high quality meat and seafood. I love to cook and I have a super busy schedule. So whenever I can

Starting point is 00:02:45 spend some time in the kitchen, I want to have all my favorite ingredients right at my fingertips. I'm also really picky about the quality of my meat and seafood and can't always find what I want, what I trust at my local markets. And that is why I love ButcherBox. They make it easy to get humanely raised meat and wild caught sustainable seafood by delivering it right to my doorstep. There are different box varieties to choose from along with different sizes and an easily customizable schedule for ongoing deliveries. Sometimes I realize I'll be out of town when my next order is due and it's easy to change my delivery date to when I need to. There's nothing quite like a good steak and ButcherBox 100% grass-fed, grass-finished ribeyes have become a new favorite for me. They're a perfect combination of juicy and tender with a rich flavor, and they're so

Starting point is 00:03:30 simple to prepare too. I love searing them with a savory spice blend and serving them with a huge arugula salad for a quick dinner. ButcherBox is committed to humanely raised animals that are never given antibiotics or added hormones, and since they take out the middleman, they're actually surprisingly affordable. The average cost breaks down to about $6 a meal. or added hormones. And since they take out the middleman, they're actually surprisingly affordable. The average cost breaks down to about $6 a meal. There is a major stipulation I always tell my patients about when it comes to animal protein. Quality needs to be a priority. And with Butcher

Starting point is 00:03:55 Box, you can feel good knowing you're getting the highest quality meat and seafood to optimize your diet. Right now, Butcher Box has a special offer for new members. If you sign up today, you'll get two ribeye steaks free in your first box by going to butcherbox.com forward slash pharmacy. That's with an F, F-A-R-M-A-C-Y. That's 200% grass-fed ribeyes by going to butcherbox.com forward slash pharmacy. And now let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Mark Hyman. Welcome to The Doctor's Pharmacy and to a new series on The Doctor's Pharmacy called Masterclass, where we dive deep into popular health topics, including inflammation, autoimmune disease, brain health, gut health, sleep, and lots more.

Starting point is 00:04:38 And today, my friend, my business partner, our podcast host, Drew Prowitt, and I are going to be diving deep into part three of our gut health series. Today, we're talking about a critical component of gut healing, which is prebiotics. Prebiotic foods are so essential if you want a healthy gut. So what are they? How do you incorporate them into your diet? And how does it all work? That's what we're talking about today. Kick it off, Drew. All right, Mark. Let's do it. I think we first start off with a little bit of a recap. We've been talking about the gut for the last few weeks in this little mini-series that we're doing. And we introduced the idea of a multivitamin for the gut, which incorporates some of these

Starting point is 00:05:17 key elements we've been discussing. This is a product that you formulated that you've been involved with for the last two years and now bringing out to the market. It's called gut food. And as a part of that, we dove into the three kind of categories that play a crucial role in gut food. We talked about polyphenols, we talked about probiotics, and today we're talking about prebiotics, another very central piece of the puzzle. And all that together just really rounds out this trifecta of critical gut healing ingredients. So Mark, just remind us big picture in case anybody missed the first two masterclasses,

Starting point is 00:05:52 which the links are below. Please go back and listen to them after you listen to this. Why do we need to pay attention to the gut and why is it so crucial for all aspects of health, especially longevity, which you're focused on a lot, right? Yeah. I mean, listen, this is the century of the gut, honestly. The microbiome has taken off as a field of research in the last 20 years, and we've learned so much about the relationship between our gut health and the rest of our health. And it turns out that if your gut isn't healthy, then you're not healthy. If your gut is messed up inside, we call it dysbiosis. It's a huge risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, cancer, obesity, weight gain, diabetes, Alzheimer's, autism, autoimmune disease, allergies, asthma,

Starting point is 00:06:38 and of course, all the digestive disorders of irritable bowel and reflux, inflammatory bowel and bloating. I mean, you name it, the microbiome plays a role. Even longevity. In my longevity research, it's astounding to see the changes that happen in our microbiome as we age. And the healthiest people as they get older have healthy microbiomes. The centenarians' poop is much healthier than some young guy's poop who's 60 or 70 who's got all kinds of

Starting point is 00:07:05 health conditions. So it's really central. And the question is, why is our gut so messed up and how do we fix it? And the reason our gut's messed up is our processed diet, is a lack of fiber. We used to eat 150 grams of fiber per person a day. Now, as hunter-gatherers, now we eat about eight to 15. And that's why so much constipation exists. And in my book, I talk about Dennis Burkett, who was a British physician who has lived in Africa as a medical missionary. And he's noticed this huge difference in the health

Starting point is 00:07:37 between the urban city dwellers in Africa and the rural hunters and gatherers who are basically genetically the same. And he noticed that the stool weight of the hunter-gatherers was two pounds a day. And that of the urban city dwellers was four ounces, like a little teeny turd. So, he didn't know why, he didn't quite understand, but he saw this huge correlation between the size of your poop correlated with the size of the amount of fiber you're consuming and long-term health risks. I mean, elephants have, I think, 50 pounds of poop a day or 50 kilos or something crazy like that because they're eating so much stuff.

Starting point is 00:08:17 So, we have to learn how to rebuild and reset our guts. And the reason they're messed up is our processed diet, C-sections, lack of breastfeeding, overuse of certain drugs like antibiotics, acid blockers, anti-inflammatories, the glyphosate in our food supply, which is on 70% of all crops, is a microbiome killer. So there's so many reasons, toxins, pesticides, herbicides. We are just a culture that is gut busting, a society that is gut busting. And so we need to be proactive about maintaining and optimizing our gut health, which is really why we created this product, Gut Food, as a multivitamin for the gut. Nobody's really talked about that. How do we keep our gut

Starting point is 00:08:56 healthy? I mean, yes, there's programs and products and treatments for people with severe gut issues, but how does the average person just keep their gut healthy with a low friction opportunity to actually add in the things we know are necessary on a daily basis to keep your gut healthy? Probiotics, polyphenols, and prebiotics, which you're going to talk about today. Yeah. We're going to dive all into prebiotics. And the thing is, much bigger than any kind of product that you're affiliated with or any companies that we work with or anything like that, this is really about education and education on these topics for low-hanging things, diet first, right? We always say it, diet first.

Starting point is 00:09:30 That's the first thing that we need to focus on. So on that note, there's a prebiotic food that you're a huge fan of, and it's been shown to help out with weight loss, improve metabolism and blood sugar, and that's called resistant starch. What is resistant starch? And what are some of the common examples that are available to people out there? Yeah, I that's called resistant starch. What is resistant starch and what are

Starting point is 00:09:45 some of the common examples that are available to people out there? Yeah. I mean, so resistant starch, it means that rather than being absorbed by the body, it's not absorbed, right? So, it's resistant to absorption. So, if it can't get absorbed and you can't use it as calories or fuel, what happens to it? Well, it's eaten by the bugs in your gut. Now, if it's the right kind of starch called resistant starch, it actually starts to fertilize the good bugs because they start to eat this starch and they grow and the good guys grow. And this seems to have broad implications for improving metabolism, for lowering obesity, lowering insulin resistance, curing diabetes. It's really impressive. And it's in certain types of foods. For example, plantains,

Starting point is 00:10:31 green bananas, lentils, Jerusalem artichokes. There's a whole bunch of these have resistant starch that can be taken and eaten on a regular basis that will help to actually create a better gut environment. So it's a really beautiful way to eat and actually not get the calories, get the taste, and have your gut be really healthy and happy at the end of it. So Mark, you just listed a bunch of them. What are a couple of your favorites and how are you incorporating them into your diet on a regular basis? Well, plantains are great. I love those. You can stir fry them, cook them. You can put them in smoothies. Lentils are great. You can make lentil soup. Those are really great resistant starches.

Starting point is 00:11:08 And just to interject really quickly, on the plantain side, plantains definitely have less total sugars compared to bananas and stuff. But being the blood sugar guy, people are always asking, right? You're like, okay, you're saying this thing is good for being a resistant starch. And how do I be mindful about incorporating my diet if I'm trying to also be very healthy? Yeah, but resistant starches also tend to help with insulin resistance and insulin sensitivity. So they're not as having these big spikes and they're actually being consumed not by you, but by the bacteria. And they produce something called short chain fatty acids, which are incredibly important as fuel for the gut cells, as regulators of signals of cancer risk,

Starting point is 00:11:43 and are so important for your overall health. And that's what's so beautiful about prebiotics is that they help grow the right bacteria which are producing in these short chain fatty acids, including butyrate, that are so protective against a whole host of diseases. Yeah. And also, I understand that green bananas are also in that category. Yeah, green bananas.

Starting point is 00:12:01 Green bananas. That means that they are like- Unripe bananas. Unripe and there's less sugar content that's there. Yeah, but they don't taste that good. They don't taste that good. But you could kind of figure out how to make them. You could cook them. And there's like powders that are out there as well. Are you a fan of those? Yeah, there's powders and there's

Starting point is 00:12:15 you can take potatoes, like little tiny potatoes that are that are like the Peruvian potatoes that are already lower in starch and sugar. You can cook them and cool them and then you can eat them that way in like a potato salad and those are more resistant starches so there's a lot of ways to sort of make resistant starch but but i think the naturally occurring ones are the best like lentils and plantains and green bananas sure and following a bunch of tips like uh the glucose goddess who was recently on your

Starting point is 00:12:40 podcast was talking about you know putting clothes on carbs, adding a little bit of fat, right? Having them with a bunch of fiber. Fiber, yeah, fiber, man. Those are things that are going to be helping and making sure you get the benefits without the blood sugar impact. So funny, I just did a talk at a university called Queens University in Charlotte, South Carolina.

Starting point is 00:13:00 And this woman was interviewing me, who was like a top chef. And she was really great. She was a chef. And she has to do a tasting contest of desserts. So she's freaking out that she's going to gain weight because she has to test eat all these desserts for the next month. And I said, well, all I have to do is take something called PGX, which is polyglycoplex, basically made from cognac root, which is a very highly viscous fiber that absorbs 50 times its

Starting point is 00:13:22 weight in water. So I said, just take that about 15 minutes before you eat dessert. It won't spike your blood sugar. You'll be fine. Yeah. PGX is a great product. Shout out to the company. Natural Factors, I think is- That's right. Natural Factors is a really great product. It's kind of a hack. You take that before you eat and you do much better. Yes. Although it's tough to drink a big glass of water with it. You got to make sure you drink at least two glasses of water with it, you got to make sure you drink like at least two glasses of water with it if you're going to take it. Okay. So can you talk a little bit about the compounds that are produced when our gut bugs eat prebiotics? Why are these so critical for overall health? Well, these compounds I mentioned are short chain fatty acids and that's a big mouthful. But these are the products that are produced by bacteria when they're digesting the right fibers and including prebiotic fibers.

Starting point is 00:14:11 And, you know, yes, we talked about resistantokes, asparagus, onions, cognac root, which is what I was talking about, the PGX, cocoa actually, flax seeds, jicama, seaweed, and polyphenol-rich foods. These are all prebiotic foods. So we need to include these in our diet. So when I go to the grocery store, I'm going to get asparagus and artichokes and onions because I know these are prebiotic foods. They're going to help my microbiome. I think about it. Or I'm going to buy jicama and put it in my salad because it's a prebiotic food and I want to actually increase the food for my good bugs. So I'm shopping, thinking about this all the time.

Starting point is 00:14:53 And the reason they're important is they produce these compounds, short-chain fatty acids. Butyrate is one of the most important ones. And we know that butyrate is not just for providing fuel for the colonic cells to keep them intact and everything working, but it's actually also a cancer regulator, an inflammation regulator. It regulates the risk of heart disease and cancer and diabetes. So it has so many benefits. It's one of the most important molecules in the body, butyrate. And we don't have enough of this. And I test my patients stool all the time. And I see so many people are just so low in butyrate. And it really is

Starting point is 00:15:24 necessary because it's necessary to keep your metabolism up, to reduce inflammation, to prevent cancer, and to help heal a leaky gut and prevent a leaky gut. So when you, for example, have low butyrate levels, you can't maintain the integrity of your gut lining. That causes a leaky gut. You get food allergies, food sensitivities. You get leakage of bacteria. You get systemic inflammation.

Starting point is 00:15:43 That leads to more weight gain, more inflammation, more heart disease, more cancer, more dementia, more depression, I mean, it's going to go on and on. So basically, when you have prebiotic foods, it helps the gut bugs flourish and then they can replicate, they produce their vitamins like vitamin K and biotin, they regulate your hormones and they basically remove toxins. But when you don't have these good bugs, you're kind of screwed. Well, one of the prebiotics that's in your formula that you put together, gut food, is acacia fiber. Talk to us a little bit about that and why it was one of the things that you were using when your gut was messed up and you were dealing with a lot of leaky gut, which had a whole host of challenges.

Starting point is 00:16:19 Yeah, for sure. So acacia fiber is a really wonderful prebiotic fiber. It's well tolerated often more than other fibers because they can be part of the system. It makes you feel full. It helps control blood sugar and cholesterol. It's an antioxidant and it helps really help correct a leaky gut. And what's really quite amazing about acacia fiber is it's actually been studied to lower a whole set of cytokines basically through lowering something called NF-kappa-B. NF-kappa-B is what we call a transcription factor. It's a compound that the body makes to tell your genes that there's a problem and to make more inflammatory molecules called cytokines.

Starting point is 00:17:01 And then you get all these cytokines produced like TNF-alpha andukin six and interleukin eight, which are very inflammatory. And you get, um, kind of, um, you know, all these problems when you have inflammation. So when you, when you actually have a case of fiber, it lowers the NF-kappa B, it lowers IL-6, it lowers the TNF alpha, these dangerous cytokines, and it actually increases the anti-inflammatory cytokines like interleukin-10. So you've got a break and you've got to accelerate it on your immune system, right? So you don't want the accelerator going all the time. You don't want the break going all the time. So we have just so much in our culture, in our life, in our environment, our diet, our

Starting point is 00:17:37 toxic load that drives inflammation. And so if you're not getting compounds that help to lower that, you're actually accelerating aging and obesity and all the chronic illnesses. So it's super important to make sure your cytokines are balanced. And that's really key. And that means making sure you have enough of the prebiotic foods that produce the short chain fats and take care of it. And that's the acacia fiber is another one of the essential fibers. It's so key. I love it. There's another prebiotic that's also included in the formula that I'd love to have you talk about. Galactooligosaccharides. It's a mouthful. GOS.

Starting point is 00:18:15 GOS. From GOS. As it's often referred to. What are the benefits and some of the research show about GOS? Well, you know, it's quite amazing i've taken this product uh quite a while and and it's it's powerful product because it it is so good at feeding the good guys and in seven in in 14 days and bloating is a huge problem for people like the food baby thing you know it's a real thing i promise you i mean my patients have me pictures of it all. I look at my food baby. I'm like, but 71% reduction in bloating at 14 days, a 92% reduction in pain, a 71% reduction in flatulence or gas. That's a big deal. And these are really debilitating

Starting point is 00:19:01 symptoms for people. And what's also interesting is that it doesn't just affect the bloating, gas, and digestive symptoms, but it has indirectly effects on the immune system. So you see almost a 60% increase in phagocytosis, which means your macrophages, which are little Pac-Man that go around and clean up all the problems and viruses, infections, are increased in function. And natural killer cells, which are really critical for fighting infections and viruses and cancer, there was 106% increase in natural killer cell function in 10 weeks. That's impressive. And so that's what helps you fight viruses and cancer. And there was also a higher level of interleukin-10, which is one of the anti-inflammatory cytokines. It's all from taking a prebiotic. This is how powerful they are.

Starting point is 00:19:48 Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. If I've learned one thing during my two decades in functional medicine, it's that we're all unique. No two people are alike, which means we can all benefit from personalized medicine. But for most of the history of medicine, individualized healthcare just was not possible. We couldn't look inside the body and see what was really going on. But now, thanks to advances in technology, that is changing for the better, and it's doing so in some amazing ways. And I've got a great example of amazing healthcare technology that I'm excited to tell you about. It's called Inside Tracker, a wellness tracker that uses science and technology to deliver ultra-personalized healthcare guidance. It can analyze your blood, your DNA, your lifestyle habits, and they can give you actionable

Starting point is 00:20:27 recommendations to help you meet your health and wellness goals. Inside Tracker provides you with the information you need to make powerful health decisions. It gives you a customized dashboard to help you track and reach your goals. And the numbers are calibrated to your body, as opposed to just listening to the normal ranges that your doctor might tell you. It also helps you understand those numbers and take action on them. If you're curious about getting your own health program dialed in to meet your unique needs, I highly recommend checking out InsideTracker. Right now, they're offering my community 20% off at InsideTracker.com

Starting point is 00:20:58 forward slash Dr. Hyman. That's D-R-H-Y-M-A-N. That's InsideTracker, I-N-S-I-D-E-T-R-A-C-K-E-R.com slash DrHyman, D-R-H-Y-M-A-N. And you'll see the discount code in your cart. Okay, Mark, switching to the next part of this discussion. So typically when people think of the gut, they think probiotics. But what we're seeing is that prebiotics are just as important, especially for creating these beneficial compounds that improve digestion and help prevent even chronic diseases that are out there, the top ones that we all know about. Ideally, this means eating a high fiber diet. So let's break down a typical plate of food for you. How much fiber and prebiotics are in that plate of food and how much fermented food and how

Starting point is 00:21:40 much protein and how much fat? Just describe your typical meal. Yeah, sure. I mean, I think it's important to understand that probiotics are like the seeds you put in the garden. Prebiotics are like the compost you put on the ground to make the seeds grow. So it's really important to think of them together. And the polyphenols are like super fuel on all that stuff. And it's a trifecta of a powerful set of compounds that really have never been put together in a product before. And that's really why we created Gut Food. And when you look at my particular day, I tend to eat a lot of fiber-rich foods. And I love those foods because I just like them. But it includes a lot of veggies.

Starting point is 00:22:26 Tons of raw veggies and salads, cooked veggies. Cooked onions. We learned last time you can't have raw onions. Cooked onions. For example, the other night, as a meal, I had duck breast. I had shiitake mushrooms, which are also very high in certain compounds like polysaccharides that are helpful for immune function. We had artichokes. I had steamed artichokes, which have, again, prebiotic fibers and also folate and detoxification compounds. I had, I think, a Japanese sweet

Starting point is 00:23:06 potato, which again is full of fiber and also phytochemicals and polyphenols. And also I had asparagus. I had stir-fried asparagus with ginger. So I'm providing all the spices and the asparagus, which also is a prebiotic food, into my diet as just a natural part of cooking and what I like to eat. So, I've sort of learned to include some core foods in my diet on a regular basis that I know are both probiotic foods and prebiotic foods and also fermented foods. So, I have miso, I have kimchi, I have sauerkraut. I like pickles, being a good Jew. So, basically, I eat a lot of these foods and then I'll have – I'll make sure I eat – those are probiotic foods. And I'll eat the prebiotic foods, like I mentioned.

Starting point is 00:23:50 And the polyphenols. So I tend to eat a lot of colorful fruits and vegetables. And then as fats go, I tend to stay away from refined oils. Avocados are great. Nuts and seeds are great. Extra virgin olive oil is great. So I tend to stick to those fats. And protein is just your palm size

Starting point is 00:24:05 serving of protein. So if you're three years old or you're 50 years old, whatever your size of your palm is, that's about the protein needs you have per meal. And that can be plant proteins or animal proteins. But the plant proteins, you typically need to eat a lot more to get the same grams of protein. If there was one prebiotic food, the people that are listening today, somebody's like, you know, I'm not eating any of the prebiotic foods. There's one that could be a great starting place, maybe a little easier on the palate, but still beneficial to them. What's that one prebiotic food that if they're not including today, they should think about incorporating? Well, it's kind of a fun one and it sounds counterintuitive, but it's noodles.

Starting point is 00:24:48 And not just any noodles, but a special kind of noodles called shirataki noodles. And these noodles are Japanese noodles that are made from cognac root, this fiber I talked about that was in PGX. It's a prebiotic food, but also has tremendous power to slowly absorb glucose and fatty acids and other things that actually drive weight gain and obesity. but also has tremendous power to slowly absorb glucose and fatty acids

Starting point is 00:25:05 and other things that actually drive weight gain and obesity. And you can enjoy them because they have no calories and they have no carbohydrates. It's just fiber. So you can make pasta with them. You can put them in soup. They're delicious. And you can buy them now pretty much everywhere.

Starting point is 00:25:24 You can buy them online. They're called like miracle noodles. Miracle now pretty much everywhere. You can buy them online. They're called- They're called like miracle noodles. Miracle noodles. Yeah. The shirataki noodles. They have weird ones that are made from soy, but get the ones that are made from cognac root. That's K-O-N-J-A-C, not cognac like the drink. And that's kind of a fun one. We make stir fries at our place all the time. By the way, we have no affiliation with this company. It's just something nice that people like to incorporate.

Starting point is 00:25:43 Yeah, exactly. It's a good way to get you off a lot of that refined carbohydrates if you're eating pasta on a regular basis. Nothing wrong with enjoying some pasta here and there. We had some pasta last night as a special treat. We went to a friend's restaurant. It was heirloom grains. Yeah, it was heirloom grains, and they're bringing in from Europe and other stuff. But that's not how we eat on a typical basis.

Starting point is 00:26:00 So Miracle Noodles are a nice way to mix it up and get some of that texture that people enjoy from noodles and pasta, but not have it be so detrimental to your metabolic health. Absolutely. And then I think if you really want to, you know, get into it, you can have more artichokes and plantains and- How easy is it to cook artichokes? They can look intimidating. Oh my God. Artichoke is the easiest thing in the world. You just take it, you can, you basically steam it for an hour and you have to make sure enough water's in the pan or boil it. And then take it out and I just dip it in olive oil and vinegar. That's it. You don't do the oven.

Starting point is 00:26:31 You do steam it. I just steam it. It's usually about an hour depending on the size of the artichoke. Like a little pot and a bamboo steamer do you use? No, I have like a pasta pot, which I don't really use for pasta anymore. But I fill the bottom up with water and it's got a metal strainer in it. I put them in there. You can also boil them too. You can just boil metal strainer in it and I put them in there. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:26:45 You can also boil them too. You can just boil them. That's fine. I like to steam them, but yeah. And then when they're soft and the leaves pull off easily, you take it out after about an hour

Starting point is 00:26:53 and then you just dip the leaves in artichoke. It takes a while to eat. You have to dip the leaves in the olive oil and vinegar and you scrape off the yummy parts of your teeth. And they taste great. And if you're not used to eating them

Starting point is 00:27:01 on a regular basis, maybe start off small initially and then you can slowly work your way out. And you also don't want to eat the hairy parts in the middle. You have to get to the heart of the artichoke and you have to take off the hairy bits in the middle, but it's fun. It's an adventure. It's an adventure for sure. So Mark, as part of this mini series, we haven't gotten to many community questions, but we'll toss in some community questions here. And these are from your audience, your Dr. Harmon Plus audience, your Instagram audience, your podcast audience.

Starting point is 00:27:23 So let's jump right in. So first question, can you take pre and probiotics at the same time? Absolutely. You want to, because you want to fertilize the bacteria. So you want to fertilize the bacteria in your gut that are already there, but also if you want to help grow a little bit more of the actual ones you're giving. So it's certainly fine to take them at the same time. The one caveat is if you're taking prebiotics and probiotics and you have bacterial overgrowth or fungal overgrowth in your gut, it can create a war and you can often feel a lot worse. And what's an example of that happening or taking place? Well, I mean, if you start taking probiotics and all of a sudden you feel like you had somebody come with a tire pump and pump up your intestines and you're bloated and distended and it's painful,

Starting point is 00:28:03 that's a clue that maybe there's something rotten in Denmark and you need to go figure out what's going on in your gut that needs weeding. Is it a bacterial overgrowth, fungal overgrowth, is it a parasite? Then you can kind of make a more coherent stand on what actually is working or not. And often one way different companies will do this is you're taking a prebiotic it's something new to you or you're taking a probiotic you start small and you build your dose up so your body can get used to it and i think that's even in your recommendations around gut food as you start tight for sure start slow and build up slow yeah exactly and i think there's instructions

Starting point is 00:28:39 on how to do that um what are your thoughts about jicama and is it one of the best probiotics that are out there? Prebiotics. Sorry. Jicama is a great prebiotic. So if you know what jicama is, it's like a, I think a Mexican kind of- South American. South American-y kind of vegetable that is like a big white root or something. And you basically peel it and you cut it into thin little matchstick slices and you can throw it in your salad. I love it. I love putting it in my salad.

Starting point is 00:29:05 It's crunchy. It's kind of got a nice taste to it. And it's a great prebiotic. So it's a go-to for sparking up your salad with a prebiotic fiber. And it's been really interesting to see a lot of companies start to incorporate jicama in their products.

Starting point is 00:29:20 Your friend Mona, my friend Mona, they have their product jicama spelled with an X. We linked to the show notes. It's a nice beverage mixer that people can use for just by itself for solo. And then our buddy Junaid. And we invest in his company's farmer's juice. One of the ways green juices spike people's blood sugar so much because they have so much fruit juice inside of them. And he used Hikama to improve the taste,

Starting point is 00:29:46 but not spike people's blood sugar. And I'm so excited about all those companies. Those are two of them. And then there's plenty of others that are out there that are using jicama juice in their products. So if your diet is in check and pretty pristine, do you still need to supplement with prebiotics and probiotics? I mean, not necessarily. I mean, if you're eating a hundred grams of fiber a day and good luck, let me see that. And you're eating the right prebiotics and probiotics? I mean, not necessarily. I mean, if you're eating 100 grams of fiber a day, and good luck, let me see that, and you're eating the right prebiotic foods, and you're really doing the right things by your gut

Starting point is 00:30:12 in terms of your overall diet, I think it's not necessarily to take prebiotics. But for most of us out there, our guts are pretty messed up, and we need a daily dose of something to help. Now, if we're not going to be eating, it's like traveling right now. So I can't always control what I'm getting. I try my best. Now, if we're not going to be eating at 3 a.m., I'm traveling right now. So I can't always control what I'm getting.

Starting point is 00:30:26 I try my best. I mean, we had seaweed salad for lunch because I know that's got prebiotic fibers in it. That helps me. But I do like to have the insurance of having something on a daily basis, knowing that there's so many things that disrupt our gut, and it's just a good insurance policy

Starting point is 00:30:43 to get a multivitamin from my gut every day. Mark, I'd love to get your thoughts on this. You know, that study around the 150 grams, 100 grams of fiber, there's a gentleman named Justin Sonnenberg. I believe he's from Stanford University and he was one of the ones that was looking at one of the tribes in Africa and looking at their diet, the hunter-gatherer tribes that are out there. Hadza.

Starting point is 00:31:06 Hadza, exactly. And in that paper, a little bit of the controversy that's been there online is that some people in more of like what you, I guess what you call like the carnivore community, they talk about how a lot of these hunter-gatherer tribes, like fiber was more of a fallback food. Now, Justin, recently in an interview that he did with Andrew Huberman, who's also been on your podcast and we'll link to in the show notes, he was saying that, yes, it's a fallback food. They would prefer honey all day. They would prefer to eat honey all day, but they just can't get a honey all day. They would prefer meat all day, but hunting is a little bit tough and not always are animals there. So whether it was done by

Starting point is 00:31:41 design or by default, he's saying they're still having this amount of fiber in their diet. So they have the same food addictions that we have. So if you could give them processed food all day, they would choose processed food all day. It's not like they have some enlightened idea around food. And just any thoughts on that big picture, like any extrapolation you want to add in? Because some people would say, well, when they can get access to meat and honey, they would choose and they would prefer that. So since we have meat and honey all around us, why do we need to be having things like fiber as a regular part of our diet? It's just one of the arguments that's out there. I mean, listen, if you're a carnivore, your gut microbiome changes very fast. If you're an omnivore, it's different.

Starting point is 00:32:26 If you're a vegan, it's different. So what is the right microbiome? That's really the question is how do you get a healthier microbiome? And I think, you know, we still haven't figured that out. You know, we know we can measure diversity, which is important, the complexity of the ecosystem. We can measure markers like short-chain fatty acids, inflammatory markers. We can look at what bugs are there, what are not there, what's growing, if there's parasites. All that is helpful. What I find challenging about some of these microbiome tests is they

Starting point is 00:32:56 only look at the microbes. They don't look at the function of the gut. And as a functional medicine doctor, that's what I care about, is what are these bacteria doing? For example, some kids I'll see who have autism, very, very low short-chain fatty acids of, for example, butyrate, which is anti-inflammatory, and very high levels of something called propionic acid, which is very inflammatory. And propionic acid has been shown in animal studies to increase autism and autism behavior. And if you look at breastfed kids versus bottle-fed kids, they have different short-chain fatty acids. The breastfed kids have high butyrate because their bacteria are being fed by the breast milk with the oligosaccharides that are in the breast milk. Basically, the oligosaccharides are prebiotic, right? This is a prebiotic made by the body for the bacteria for babies in breast milk. That's what it is.

Starting point is 00:33:55 And if you take formula, there's no prebiotic oligosaccharides. And so instead of getting butyrate, these kids get high propionic acid. And that's why we see you know breastfeeding is so important correlated with better health outcomes and where maybe bottle feeding is leading to increases in propionic acid which can have adverse consequences for cognitive function for autism and learning difficulties add and lots more so i think it's important to realize that that our diet really matters and that the you know prebiotics that are in our food really are key and so historically if you know if we were hunter-gatherers you know we didn't have a choice

Starting point is 00:34:31 we had to eat whatever we could we got root a berry you know some tree bark or whatever like and and that's just what we had to do and and that was more of a natural environment for them it was yes i mean if all all we had was sugar that's all we'd want to eat, we'd be really happy, but we'd get very sick. But they had a wide variety of foods and a far more complex diet than we do. The whole variety of roots and berries and plant foods and lots of different kinds of animals. And also they'll eat the bone marrow, they'll eat all sorts of stuff. So really, really important to think about how do we get the right balance of things for us in a way that isn't going to be too onerous, but that it's going to be designed to fertilize the right bugs and not grow the wrong bugs. So another question we have from the community, is a prebiotic good for people who have IBS? What are some of the considerations that people who have IBS have to think about?

Starting point is 00:35:20 Yeah, so generally when I think about someone with a gut issue is the weeding, seeding, and feeding program. And I think the IBS group can be constipation, can be diarrhea, but typically there's a component of bacterial overgrowth or fungal overgrowth. So I really am very careful about when I'm working with these patients, not overdo stuff too fast with the pre and probiotics. I usually give them a week or two of weeding, clearing out the bad bugs with herbs, some of those medications, antifungals. And then we see the body can be able to tolerate these things. There's not a war going on. All right. Next question from the community. What's the difference in digestive enzymes and

Starting point is 00:36:00 how are digestive enzymes different than pro and prebiotics? Well, Drew, in order to have a healthy functioning gut, you need a lot of things going on. You need to be able to digest your food. You need the right stomach acid. You need digestive enzymes from your pancreas. You need salivary enzymes from your mouth. You need the right fibers and prebiotics to actually help grow the right bacteria. You need probiotics.

Starting point is 00:36:22 You need postbiotics. You need all the things you need to actually keep a gut healthy. And so when we're thinking about repairing and fixing the gut, we need to think about all those things. And I see people with low pancreatic function, low hydrochloric acid. And so sometimes giving them supplements with pancreatic enzymes or more plant-based digestive enzymes along with hydrochloric acid can actually be very helpful. So it's really depending on the person. But if people have a lot of SIBO and bacterial overgrowth and digestive upset and undigested food in their stool,

Starting point is 00:36:52 or on their lab test we see low pancreatic elastase, we can actually help to treat them in an effective way by providing those enzymes for people. So it's not an either-or. It's a select group that might need them. But when you need them, it can be really helpful. And then when you get your gut healthy, you don't need them so much anymore. Now, sometimes when people are going out to restaurants or they're eating foods like gluten and dairy, which people partake in every so often, it's a part of metabolic flexibility. Some of my friends might take digestive enzymes with them to like the restaurant or whatever.

Starting point is 00:37:21 Do you ever do that? Yeah, there's actually gluten digest enzymes. There's lactase enzymes. There's things that help with that dairy and so forth. So you can use them to sort of mitigate problems that you might have if you go out and cheat a little bit, but it depends on who you are. If you're a celiac, you don't want to cheat at all, right? If you're having severe dairy reactions, you don't want to cheat at all.

Starting point is 00:37:39 But for some of us, you know, who just may have a little upset tummy or whatever, I mean, I think it's fine. I think the goal is ultimately to eat in a way that actually is going to rebuild your gut so you're more resilient. That's the whole game here in functional medicine. It's not restriction, but freedom. And metabolic degrees are freedom by optimizing your body's systems. And once you do that, like I said before, I couldn't eat anything for years without being sick, without causing rashes all over my

Starting point is 00:38:05 body, my eyes getting red, my tongue getting sores, my stomach bloating, having severe brain fog, fatigue. I mean, it was so immediate. And I knew exactly what was going on. At the time, this was almost 30 years ago, I didn't know all that I know now. The microbiome wasn't even a word. We knew how to work with the gut, but it was really tough and it was hard to reset the system. And for me, it was challenging because I had mercury poisoning. And if you have something like that, you can do everything you want. You can take all the prebiotics, polyphenols, everything you want. Unless you get rid of that, you're not going to get better. So Mark, I think this is a perfect opportunity to do a little bit of a recap. We've been doing this multi-part series and we've just covered polyphenols to start

Starting point is 00:38:46 and we covered probiotics and then we covered prebiotics all under this greater umbrella of we live in a world that has never been more destructive to our gut. So we want to be more mindful to take care of our gut because health and disease starts in the gut.

Starting point is 00:39:01 So give us a little bit of recap of some of the top points that we learned through this multi-part series and we'll have more to come soon, but at least so far, where are we at? Yeah, I mean, the first high level is we have to understand as a culture, we have massively messed up our guts by our industrial process diet, our lack of fiber, our lack of phytochemicals and polyphenols, by the increasing C-section rates, lack of breastfeeding, the use of antibiotics and gut-busting drugs like Advil and aspirin. So it creates a perfect storm for a disaster of a gut environment that promotes all sorts of downstream problems from not just

Starting point is 00:39:36 digestive issues, which are the number one reason people visit the doctor, but all sorts of chronic diseases from heart disease to obesity to cancer to diabetes to dementia to autoimmune diseases to allergies to asthma to autism to ADD. I mean, that could go on and on. So we have to really understand that gut is central to our health, to every aspect of our health. And so we really have come up with a framework for helping people to reboot their gut. How do you hit the reset button on your gut? Well, it involves diet. So upgrading your diet and the quality of the food you're eating, increasing the fiber content, polyphenol content, phytochemicals, super important. Second, we need to supplement with the right things like a multivitamin for our gut with the right prebiotics, the right probiotics, and the right

Starting point is 00:40:21 polyphenols to help. So for example, in our product gut food, we have lactospore probiotic, which is a spore-based probiotic, very well-researched. We have galactooligosaccharides, which are incredible prebiotic food. Acacia fiber is a prebiotic. We have something called mucosae, which is prickly pear and also olive leaf extract, along with quercetin, which are incredible polyphenols for helping boost the good bacteria in the gut. For example, acromantium mucinophilia is highly responsive to these. It's exactly what it sounds like. Mucinophilia means it's mucin-loving, so it creates a mucus layer in the gut to prevent

Starting point is 00:41:02 a leaky gut. So we have all these ingredients that are designed scientifically to optimize the gut environment, to be like a multivitamin for the gut and to help people really create a baseline that they can rely on. It's like, why do you need a multivitamin? Well, because we're not eating 800 different food crops anymore and a lot of our food's depleted and we've had all these problems. So in a perfect world, we should not need all these things, right? And I always say, oh, you don't need a vitamin, but only under certain conditions, right? You only hunt and gather your own wild food. You only drink pure, clean water, breathe pure, clean air, have no environmental exposures, have no chronic stress, sleep eight to nine hours

Starting point is 00:41:37 a night and exercise all the time. Now, if that's you, no, you don't need a multivitamin, but everybody else, yes. So the same thing with a multivitamin. But everybody else, yes. So the same thing with a multivitamin. In a perfect world, we wouldn't need this. Maybe if you're a Hadza living in the jungle and you're eating in Africa all the wild stuff and you're doing your thing, no, they probably don't need all this stuff. But for the rest of us in modern society, absolutely. I love it, Mark. Thank you for taking us through all that and more. Let's go ahead and conclude today's episode on the topic of prebiotics. Well, thanks so much, Drew, for doing this masterclass with me and doing it on the gut, which is my favorite topic. As I said, they like to call

Starting point is 00:42:16 me Dr. See Every Poop. And if you want to learn what I've learned and you want to take advantage of what we've been doing for 30 years in functional medicine, have a look at our new multivitamin for the gut. It's called Gut Food. Just go to gutfood.com to learn more. Sign up for the wait list when it's coming out. Share your stories with us about what's worked for you for your gut and health and how you optimize your gut function. If you love this episode, share with your friends and family on social media. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and we'll see you next week on The Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Make sure to check out Gut Food and learn more at gutfood.com.

Starting point is 00:42:56 I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do. And introducing you to all the experts that I know and I love and that I've learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm doing, which is called Mark's Picks. It's my weekly newsletter. And in it, I share my favorite stuff from foods to supplements to gadgets to tools to enhance your health. It's all the cool stuff that I use and that my team uses to optimize and enhance our health. And I'd love you to sign up for the weekly newsletter. I'll only send it to you once a week on Fridays, nothing else, I promise. And all you do is go to drhyman.com forward slash pics to sign up. That's drhyman.com forward slash pics, P-I-C-K-S,

Starting point is 00:43:38 and sign up for the newsletter and I'll share with you my favorite stuff that I use to enhance my health and get healthier and better and live younger longer. Hi, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search

Starting point is 00:44:14 their find a practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.

The Dr. Hyman Show - The Best Foods To Heal The Gut

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.