dysbiosis – Daily Bag of Goodness

IBS stands for Irritable Bowel Syndrome and is really a diagnosis for “we don’t know what’s wrong with your gut”. And sadly 15% (or more) of the worldwide population suffer with IBS (more common in women). Approximately 20-40% of all visits to the gastroenterologist are due to IBS symptoms which include: abdominal pain, bloating, gas, diarrhea, and constipation. That’s a LOT of people suffering with digestive issues!

New research is just starting to scratch the surface of the gut/brain/body connection such that more traditional doctors are starting to slowly take a more holistic approach, but it can take 20-30 years for allopathic medicine treatments to catch up with current research. And even those doctors who have ‘seen the light’ and want to do more can’t because of a broken medical model that prevents them from spending enough time with patients. This is where Nutritional Therapy Practitioners and Functional Practitioners/ Doctors come into play.

The functional approach takes the time to look at the WHOLE picture of the body and systems at play. Everything is connected in the body! One example of this is how 90% of our serotonin (feel good hormone) is produced in the gut – this means that even hormone production and our neurotransmitters are impacted by gut imbalances!

Can IBS be Healed?

“Did you know that up to 84% of IBS may be caused by an overgrowth bacteria in the intestines?”¹ The good news is that bacterial imbalances can usually be resolved. This is where working with a holistic practitioner is key. Those trained in gut health (like myself) know how to create protocols using herbs and antimicrobials to support your gut synergistically and rebalance your microbiome. Antibiotics can be harsh on the gut as they kill not just the ‘bad guys’ (dysbiotic bacteria) but also the ‘good guys’ (beneficial gut bacteria) as well. We would also recommend removing any foods that trigger your symptoms to allow the gut to reset while you work to rebalance the bacterial load. You can think of this as weeding the garden. You picking out / clearing and rebalancing bacteria (it could also be a parasite or yeast imbalance) that are creating the stress on the gut. Most people will begin to feel symptom relief during this phase of the protocol.

Once the the weeding is complete, then we want to plow and re-seed the gut with more of the good guys. We need a healthy amount of beneficial bacteria to keep the system in check. You can think of these beneficial bacteria as your ‘soldiers’ who ramp up and ‘fight’ any pathogens that come into the body. There is a big connection with the number of beneficial bacteria and your immune function! In this step we support healing of the gut lining with various foods and supplements and incorporate more probiotics and probiotic-rich foods back into the diet. We also focus on getting more prebiotic-rich foods. Pre-biotics are the foods that our ‘good guys’ like to ‘eat’ in order to proliferate and thrive.

The unpopular truth is that stress also impacts our gut health and must be part of the holistic equation. Stress impacts our bodies in more ways then we even realize and comes in the form of food sensitivities, environmental stress, and also emotional stress. Emotional stress can stem from past unresolved traumas and/or family dynamics (loss of a loved one, divorce, children with behavioral struggles, etc.). A holistic practitioner will discuss with you ways you can support your nervous system and stress balance.

Other Supports for IBS

As mentioned, even traditional medicine is starting to see that other more holistic therapies can improve IBS symptoms. Two sites, WebMD ²and Harvard Medical³ both site the following alternative therapies as helpful in managing IBS:

Acupuncture
Changes in diet
Stress reduction
Supplements – fish oil and probiotics were noted as well as some herbs
Psychotherapy (talk therapy)
Yoga
Hypnosis

Many of these modalities calm the nervous system and assist with stress management. This just shows how powerful our minds are over the health of our body!

“I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me.”
Dr. Maya Angelou

Diets That Support IBS

A low-FODMAP diet is cited as the most common recommendation for IBS. FODMAP stands for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols. To simplify, this category of foods includes wheat and beans, lactose (dairy), some high fructose fruits and high fructose corn syrup, and a number of non-caloric sweeteners (sorbitol, xylitol, erythritol). Many internet sites do not accurately list all FODMAP foods, but the Monash University FODMAP Diet App could be beneficial if you are trying out this way of eating.

A low-FODMAP diet is very restrictive and unless clients are very symptomatic, this is not necessarily where I would start with recommendations. And if you do go this route, I do not recommend it for longer than 2-6 weeks. Be sure to use a slow reintroduction of foods to find ones that trigger symptoms, but bring back as many foods as possible. This article is a great reference for trying out this diet on your own. Food diversity is key to a healthy gut so long-term restriction of certain food groups can work against you!

For severe symptoms sometimes an Elemental Diet or modified fast can be beneficial to allow the intestines to heal from severe inflammation. I highly recommend working with a practitioner if you go one of these routes.

Life After an IBS Diagnosis

I hope you have gathered that an IBS diagnosis is not a reason to give up! There IS something you can do…many things in fact! While this doesn’t mean you will never have a flare again, you can add holistic tools to your tool box and pull them out when needed to get back to living your best life as quickly as possible. Don’t struggle in silence. Reach out and get support. You might be surprised how quickly you can feel good again after suffering with these symptoms for so long!

If you still don’t know where to begin, reach out! We can figure this out together!
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Have you been struggling for months (or years) to figure out the cause of your digestive issues but instead finding yourself more and more frustrated? You are not alone!

I have personally struggled with this as well and witnessed countless friends and family members deal with the same. You might have tried various cleanses, detoxes, restrictive diets… and maybe these things help for a while, but you never can really figure out what helped the most. Ultimately, you end up right back where you were but feeling more defeated each time.

You end up dealing with the symptoms for years and even rationalize to yourself that they are “normal” or just part of getting older. After all, everyone belches and passes gas after meals, right? And having a bowel movement (BM) every 2-4 days is totally normal, right? Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s NOT normal. You should be having 1-2 BMs DAILY and it should be an easy to pass smooth sausage shape with no cracks and have no foul odor. We rarely talk about the specifics of what a healthy bowel movement should be like, so I’m putting this out there for anyone who ever wondered ‘what is a normal BM?’!

Additionally, digestion should be a silent process if all of your digestive enzymes and bile are flowing properly. If you are belching or passing gas during or after meals or feel bloated after eating; it is very likely that you are not producing adequate stomach acid, pancreatic enzymes, and/or bile. But another common reason for any or all of these symptoms is a gut microbiome imbalance (dysbiosis). This could be in the form of a pathogen (bad bacteria), parasite, or even low good bacterial flora. And if your microbiome is out of balance for long enough, it can lead to a host of chronic diseases such as IBS, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, kidney disease, heart disease and hypertension just to name a few. Just search “gut dysbiosis and chronic disease” on pubmed.gov and it turns up over 1,000 results! We are learning more every day about how an unchecked unbalanced microbiome is linked to many chronic diseases. In fact, gut imbalances can also be closely tied to mental health conditions as well. Dysbiosis is often linked to anxiety, depression, and mood disorders. It is estimated that 60% of people with these conditions have some sort of dysbiosis. I have personally experienced this for myself when I had a yeast overgrowth.

Photo by Sangga Rima Roman Selia on Unsplash

So now you’re wondering how you find out if you have dysbiosis, right?! This is where stool testing comes in. The GI-MAP is a powerful tool that is very comprehensive. I use this functional lab with clients who want to identify the root cause of and support their bodies to find balance in their gut microbiota again! While functional labs are never cheap, tested and targeted protocols that are developed with the bio-individuality of each client in mind can really save clients time, frustration, and money in the long run!

While there are a number of stool tests available, the GI-MAP is more sensitive than a culturing or microscopy test since it identifies the DNA of the parts and pieces of all organisms present in the stool even if they are no longer able to grow in a culture. Additionally, it is quantitative versus qualitative so it is possible to determine how detrimental the levels of various organisms might be to your’e health!

The reason that other tests are sub-par is that culturing or microscopy can miss up to 50% of bacterial species due to the small sample size. Even for stool tests which require 3 samples, a small test sample is pulled from this and on such a small sample size, a parasite could easily be missed completely. Additionally, live yeast organisms are unlikely to survive all the way through the digestive tract so the likelihood of finding an active yeast culture in a traditional stool test is rare. While the GI-MAP only requires 1 sample, it provides more accuracy since it uses qPCR technology. This allows it to identify the tiny DNA SNPs present (even if the species is no longer alive) and also provides a list of prescription drugs that would most effectively treat each identified pathogen or parasite while considering the bio-individuality of the client (in the case that a client would want to have their doctor treat the pathogen via prescription antibiotics).

Only requiring 1 sample is helpful for clients who must discontinue medications or digestive supplements to take the test, minimizing their discomfort. The GI-MAPs ability to quantify the amount of each species found versus just providing a positive/negative result allows to really narrow in on the species that is likely causing the most disruption and suggest a targeted healing protocol that will be efficient and effective.

I had the privilege of being taught by practitioners from the Restorative Wellness Solutions program with over 20 years of experience on the best protocols to eradicate various pathogens, parasites, yeast, and fungi. These protocols typically include antimicrobial or antifungal herbs, biofilm disruptors, as well as functional supports of ‘northern’ digestive stress (such as bloating, gas, heartburn, etc.).

In addition to the GI-MAP, I always recommend an MRT (Mediator Release Test) as well which is a food sensitivity test. In a future post, Ill dig into that more, but I wanted to point out that this is typically part of a healing protocol as well. The MRT looks at which foods are causing an inflammatory response on a cellular level. This way, I can work with clients to temporarily pull out these foods to allow for quicker and more complete resolution of their dysbiosis.

If you suspect that dysbiosis is an issue for you and you are interested in determining the root cause once and for all, let’s talk!

Tag: dysbiosis

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