The Dr. Hyman Show - The Pegan Diet: Eat For Gut Health

Episode Date: March 5, 2021

The gut microbiome is likely the most important regulator of our overall health. Unfortunately, our modern diet, gut-busting lifestyle, environmental toxins, and other factors all feed the bad bugs in our gut and drive inflammation, which is at the root of almost all chronic diseases and obesity. Sixty percent of our immune system is in our gut, right under a one-cell thin layer of gut lining. When we treat this lining unkindly, we develop a leaky gut, allowing food proteins, microbes, and microbial toxins to “leak” into our bloodstream, triggering our immune system to start fighting the foreign invaders. We call this dysbiosis (as opposed to symbiosis) an imbalanced gut microbiome. In this mini-episode, Dr. Hyman discusses how to eat for gut health, the fifteenth principle in his new book, “The Pegan Diet: 21 Practical Principles for Reclaiming Your Health in a Nutritionally Confusing World” available now at pegandiet.com The Pegan Diet is Dr. Hyman’s definitive guide to using food as medicine and understanding how food impacts every system of our body. It has 21 easy-to-follow principles for anyone, regardless of where they are on their health journey. It also contains 30 delicious Pegan-approved recipes. Get your copy today!

Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. It turns out the microbiome is likely the most important regulator of your entire health. I mean, there's a hundred trillion microbes in you, ten times the number of your own cells. Welcome to The Doctor's Pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman, and that's Pharmacy, F-A-R-M-A-C-Y, a place for conversations that matter. And today we're having a conversation, well, I'm having a conversation with myself about my new book, The Pegan Diet, 21 Practical Principles for Reclaiming Your Health in a Nutritionally Confusing World.

And today's mini episode is going to be on a topic we are all very interested in and confused about, which is our gut. How do we eat for our gut health? So let's dive in. But first, no, you can get my book, The Pegan Diet. Anywhere you get books, you can go to pegandiet.com. I'd love you to get a copy. It's a super simple, clear map of nutritional principles

that break down the nutritional confusion that get beyond paleo and vegan. And the whole idea of pegan was kind of a joke when I was sitting on a panel between a paleo doc and a vegan doc, and they were fighting. And I'm like, hey, you guys, stop it. I'm pegan. And everybody laughed. And I thought, okay, this is a good idea. And then it just made sense that these philosophies and almost all other dietary philosophies have far more in common with each other about whole foods and real food than the standard

American diet, which is killing all of us. So today, let's dive into the special episode, this mini-sode, on principle 15 of the Pagan diet called Eat for Gut Health. Now, this is the decade, maybe even the century of the microbiome. I mean, who knew that poop was the key to health and weight loss and longevity? Well, Hippocrates did. He said, all disease begins in the gut. Now, while the science of the microbiome is still pretty early, practitioners of functional medicine have been treating complex chronic diseases by fixing the gut for decades. Things like autoimmune disease and allergies, mood disorders, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, skin problems, headaches, weight issues, hormonal problems, even autism. And get this,

a fecal transplant reduced autistic symptoms by 50% in one study, and that improvement lasted two years. It turns out the microbiome is likely the most important regulator of your entire health. I mean, there's 100 trillion microbes in you, 10 times the number of your own cells, and 100 times the amount of DNA. I mean, we have 20,000 genes. Your microbiome contains 2 to five million microbial genes. All the making proteins, which are cell signaling molecules, are messengers of health or disease. Now, some scientists estimate that a third to half of all the molecules in our blood come from microbial metabolites.

They interact with our genes, our hormones, our immune system, our brain chemistry, every single process in our biology. Our gut microbes also produce vitamins for us, things like vitamin K and biotin. But sadly, our gut microbiome ain't what it used to be. We eat gut-busting foods. We live a gut-busting lifestyle. We take gut-busting drugs. Want to grow toxic weeds in your gut? Feed them a processed diet high in sugar and starch, high in food additives. And the microbiome-destroying weed killer known as glyphosate used on 70% of all crops. Our diet is also low in food for the good bugs, prebiotic fibers, polyphenols, which are all the colorful medicinal compounds in plant foods. And we also take too many gut-busting drugs,

things like antibiotics, acid blockers, anti-inflammatories like Advil, hormones, and steroids. And of course, then there's all the environmental toxins from our food, air, and water that makes our inner garden a sorry place with too many disease-causing bugs and not enough healing bugs. You see, the bad bugs drive inflammation, which is at the root of almost all chronic diseases and obesity. 60% of your immune system is right in your gut. It's right under this one cell thin layer of gut lining. And when we treat this gut lining unkindly, we get something called a leaky gut. And that allows food proteins and microbes and microbial toxins to leak into our bloodstream. And that triggers our immune system to start fighting the foreign invaders. Your body

and your biology is a collateral damage. We call this dysbiosis as opposed to symbiosis or an imbalanced gut microbiome. Now, every day we understand more and more about the link between chronic illness and gut dysbiosis. My own journey toward understanding it is not just theoretical, unfortunately. My own gut taught me much about what goes wrong and how to fix it. 25 years ago, mercury toxicity damaged my intestinal microbiome, and that led to severe irritable bowel syndrome, bloating, and diarrhea. Getting the mercury out and healing my gut fixed it, but I guess I still had more to learn. It was a perfect storm a few years ago, a domino effect of insults. It started with a bad root canal treated with the antibiotic clindamycin, which caused a deadly gut infection known as C. diff, and that kills about 30,000

people a year. My 24-7 pain, gut pain, bloody stools, diarrhea, fever, nausea, ultimately led to full-blown ulcerative colitis. And oh, did I mention I broke my arm at the same time and took anti-inflammatories for the pain triggering severe gastritis? My digestion was a red-hot mess from gut to butt. I was down for the count for five months. I couldn't work, focus, or even answer an email. I lost 30 pounds. I was so desperate to get better that I took high doses of prednisone, which is a steroid, and it didn't even work.

But using the principles of functional medicine, I went deep into innovative strategies to heal and restore my gut health. The science of the microbiome has advanced so far, so fast, that I created a powerful new method to fix stubborn gut issues. My colitis went away in three weeks. Along with diet and all the other tools of functional medicine, this innovation has been a game changer for my patients with gut problems. Everything from mild irritable bowel to full-blown inflammatory bowel disease. Growing a healthy inner garden helps heal a leaky gut,

which is the root of most inflammatory and chronic diseases. It even helps with obesity. I mean, get this, without changing diets, transplanting bugs or poop from a thin mouse to a fat mouse makes the fat mouse lose weight. Fecal transplants from healthy humans to diabetic ones helps improve their diabetes. Now, I know we're not all signing up to do fecal transplants. So there are three steps toward cultivating a healthy inner garden.

The first is weed. And the three steps are weed, seed, and feed. And we're going to go through them garden. The first is weed. And the three steps are weed, seed, and feed. And we're going to go through them all. The first is weed. Remove gut-busting drugs and foods. Bad bugs love sugar, starch, and processed foods. Ditch the following gut bombs. Highly processed or packaged foods, refined grains, especially weed or all grains and beans, if you really have a lot of gut issues, gluten, dairy, and any other foods to which you may be sensitive, sugars, especially high fructose corn syrup, which punches little holes in your gut, artificial sweeteners and sugar alcohols, which create bad dysbiosis.

Make sure you get rid of refined oils and fats, especially soybean and corn oil. Stop the antibiotics, except when you really have to take them. Obviously, steroids you want to avoid. Anti-inflammatories like Advil and Aleve and aspirin. Acid blockers, all those PPIs, Nexium, Prilosec, Purple Pill, all that stuff. Those are terrible for your gut. Chronic stress, yes, stress causes leaky gut too. Sorry about that. Environmental toxins, you want to cut those down if you can, especially glyphosate sprayed products like wheat and industrial soy and corn because glyphosate is a gut microbiome destroyer. So you've gotten the weeding done.

What about the seeding? Yeah, I want to add in the good bugs. So what do you do? You include fermented or cultured foods in your diet like sauerkraut, pickles, kimchi, kefir, miso, gluten-free tamari, tempeh, which is an Indonesian fermented soybean cake, and tofu, which is fermented sometimes, naturally fermented soy sauce, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar, and coconut yogurt, which can be unsweetened.

And the third step is to feed and support the growth of healthy bacteria. And this includes, obviously, both prebiotic and fiber-rich foods for the gut. So what are the prebiotic foods? Well, if you have SIBO or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, these foods might need to be introduced slowly. Too many prebiotic foods all at once can make you feel bad and give you a food baby, if you know what I mean. So what are the prebiotic foods?

Apples, artichokes, asparagus, dandelion greens, jicama root, Jerusalem artichokes, onions, garlic leeks, plantains, and underripe bananas, and polyphenol-rich foods like cranberry, pomegranate, and green tea. And seaweed is an awesome prebiotic food. And you want to include a lot of fiber-rich foods, basically fruits and veggies, nuts and seeds, avocados, beans, berries, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, celery, cucumber, figs, kale, lentils, nuts and seeds, especially sprouted, olives, pumpkin, spinach, and strawberries. And of course, there's lots more plant foods out there that have fiber. Now, for severe cases of gut dysbiosis like I had, I recommend a super shake designed to quickly heal a dysfunctional gut. It cured my colitis in weeks.

Now, I synthesized my 30 years of experience with the latest science in the microbiome, and I designed a therapeutic cocktail to heal the gut and grow some very important beneficial bacteria, especially one called acromantia mucinophilia. Now the mucinophilia part is about the mucus layer because the acromantia supports the mucus layer that protects our gut and prevents a leaky gut. Low levels of this bacteria are linked to autoimmune disease, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, even cancer. And guess what? I had none of it in my gut. You can't really take it as a probiotic and fiber does help, but it turns out that acromantia loves colorful polyphenols that are found in cranberry, pomegranate, and green tea. So the foundation of my inner garden gut shake or gut food is a polyphenol rich combination.

These feed the good bugs. They inhibit the growth of the bad bugs. Now, I've since prescribed this to hundreds of patients, and it's my secret weapon when other things fail to treat chronic disease. And it can be used by anyone who wants to optimize their gut. So what do I put in? I put in colostrum, basically immunoglobulins, acacia fiber, pomegranate concentrate, cranberry concentrate, green tea powder, high-dose probiotics, and collagen powder. And I put it all in a little bit of water, mix it up, and drink it. It's pretty awesome, actually. Also, functional medicine doctors and practitioners are gut experts. So working with one on your gut restoration can be a game changer if you have resistant problems or more challenging symptoms. Maybe you have bacterial overgrowth or fungal overgrowth or a parasite or a load of hidden mercury. You might

need a little extra support. A functional medicine practitioner can investigate your gut health using stool tests, breath tests for overgrowth of bad bugs, food sensitivity testing, and even customized diets and healing protocols. Also, you can come see us at the Ultra Wellness Center. You can go to ultrawellnesscenter.com, work with my team. We also do virtual consults so we can get you in. So what are the takeaways from principle 15? Well, weed, right? We talked about that. Seed and feed.

And of course, if you're stuck, you can use the gut food shake. So I hope you've enjoyed this little mini episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy derived from my book, The Pegan Diet, 21 Practical Principles for Reclaiming Your Health in a Nutritionally Confusing World. And you can find it at pegandiet.com. Check it out, get the book. I'd love you to read it. It's super simple. It's clear. It's easy. It's meant to make it super practical and fun. So check it out. And I hope you enjoyed this little mini episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy.

And we'll see you next time on another episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Hey, everybody. It's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into The Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do and introducing you 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'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, 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 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.