Full Transcript Episode intro and sponsor note 0:00 Welcome back to the Get to The Root podcast with Hope For Healing. 0:03 And today we dive into part two of our conversation on constipation with Dr. 0:08 Paula Kruppstadt. 0:09 In today's episode, we go deeper into what really happens when constepation is ignored, from headaches and joint pain to focus issues and even chronic 0:18 immune activation. 0:19 Dr. 0:20 K also shares the surprising role genetics can play, how your mitochondria could be involved, and practical, doable tools like vitamin C cleanses, 0:30 magnesium and other nutrient support. 0:33 Whether you're here as a parent trying to help your child or you are dealing with constipation yourself, today's episode is full of eye-opening connections 0:41 and action-well steps. 0:42 This podcast is for education and encouragement. 0:45 please consult your health provider for personalized medical advice. 0:48 Now a note from Dr. 0:49 K about our sponsor. 0:52 At Hope for Healing, we know that understanding your unique genetics can open the door to true healing. 0:58 Through our sponsorship and partnership with Vagran, were able to use custom SNP panels that give us deeper insight into the root causes of health challenges. 1:09 In this episode, We're shining a spotlight on the SLC-19A1 gene. 1:15 It plays a critical role in fueling the mitochondria, which keep your bowel moving. 1:21 We're thankful for the grand sponsorship of this podcast and their role in helping us deliver care that's as individual as you are. 1:30 So Dr. 1:30 K, thank you so much for going on to everything that you've kind of described the basics.
What happens when constipation is ignored 1:37 But what I really want to know is, what could happen if we just ignore constipation? 1:43 Because so many people call constapation as like, oh, it's just a thing of life, or it is just something I'll get used to. 1:50 Are there things that could happen if we ignore constipation? 1:53 That's a great question. 1:55 Some of these people are going to go, oh, yeah, but let's think about it. 2:03 When you don't poop, you develop headaches, OK? 2:08 And you can develop, well, first of all, your abdomen's going hurt, what is going on during that time period? 2:14 So let us talk a little bit about the anatomy of the GI tract. 2:18 Normally, and for people who can see this, the bowel is supposed to peristals, meaning things move through the bow in a nice orderly fashion. 2:29 But if part of the bell becomes distended, and swollen, impacted with stool and maybe certain types of bacteria that make gas. 2:41 If you've got part of the bowel peristalsing and it hits that area, it causes severe pain and causes bloating and people can end up burping and having 2:55 vomit come up their throat. 2:56 And that's another question that I ask children because parents have no clue. 2:59 You're like, hey, you know, Do you ever burp and then gooky stuff comes up into the back of your throat and it tastes gross and you have to swallow it? 3:09 Yeah, all the time. 3:10 The parents go, I had no idea. 3:12 And I'm like, yes, it's happening. 3:15 It happens a lot with kids with constipation. 3:18 But also, you want to just think about the entire GI tract. 3:21 You think what's going on in the esophagus, someone getting heartburn. 3:26 But normally, since the tone of the GI track is meant to be it's very mobile, it is not supposed to distended, when you are unable to evacuate literal 3:40 trash from your body full of toxins, your nice thin GI tract starts to get distended. 3:49 And then it gets distented and distend it and you have rock hard dehydrated poop all around the edges. 3:57 So when that's going on, How can you absorb nutrition coming through the GI tract? 4:05 So number one, you become malnourished. 4:07 You're not absorbing nutrients, okay? 4:11 Number two, your reabsorbing and recirculating toxins. 4:17 Your re-absorb and recirculate that you were meant to excrete. 4:24 And if there were any organisms or toxins within the food that ingested, then you may end up getting those organisms replicating within your GI tract. 4:39 Okay, now let's talk about the stomach, the small intestine. 4:44 The small intestines is supposed to be sterile. 4:47 But what happens when you struggle with chronic constipation, and we see this all the time with children too, is that the large intestine becomes very 4:59 distended also and bacteria migrate up into the small intestine and that's when we end up with the bloating and then potentially this reflux And in children, 5:17 they can end up getting recurrent ear infections and asthma because they have silent reflux. 5:23 They're refluxing stomach contents because of this massive burden in their entire GI tract. 5:32 Now let's go downstream. 5:36 When you're unable to evacuate your body of all these toxins, you develop pain because it's an immune activation. 5:44 So you, your unable-to-ridge-your-body-of-these- toxins your immune system goes, there's bad guys, and they're trying to put out the fire and you hurt. 5:57 Joint pain, headaches, abdominal pain. 6:03 When your GI tract close to the size of a tennis court has a sunburn, you just feel awful and you hurt all the time. 6:13 So it can impair your ability to think, to process information if you're always struggling with GI distress. 6:23 So, I just think the biggest thing is reabsorbing all that crap, literal crap and feeling terrible and it affects every part of your body.
SNPs, mitochondria, and hidden constipation 6:32 But cognition, if you have a kid who's constipated, they hurt, have headaches, going back and forth to the nurse's office, 6:40 their belly hurts, can't pay attention, and their body hurts. 6:44 So constepation is terrible. 6:47 Well, what is it actually that's causing so is that the fact that there is so much waste and quite literally waste things that we should have thrown away 6:55 that are causing like a toxic react like what does actually causing the headache and these like focus in all of these neuro issues. 7:04 So, it's multifactorial, but number one, its literal reabsorption of waste material. 7:13 And that can cause lymphatic system overload, our lymph system, so people tend to be swollen and boggy and they hurt. 7:22 Now, what's leading to the actual pain? 7:26 The immune system is trying to squelch this immune activation, all these foreign invaders. 7:35 And if you don't have enough of that stuff called glutathione, which is the body's master antioxidant, puts the fire out. 7:45 If you don't have enough of that to begin with, then my gosh, it's like all these symptoms develop. 7:53 So there's immune factors, cytokines, prostaglandins. 8:01 That can cause all the pain, but if you literally don't have the glutathione to put the fire out and then, you know, to evacuate your bowels, 8:12 then it just doesn't go anywhere. 8:16 It just gets reabsorbed and it's awful. 8:19 Yeah. 8:19 Well, that makes a whole lot of sense. 8:21 That's why I was like, man, these things can feel seemingly unrelated, right? 8:25 You're like oh, I'm constipated and I have a headache. 8:28 Like our natural inclination isn't to go, oh that's the same, but what you're saying is that our bodies either are challenged, 8:39 meaning because we have genetically, we had SNPs, which can you say what a SNP is? 8:44 Because we're talking about these SNPS, can we discuss what it is real quick? 8:48 So, in our body we have various enzymes, we various sequences, so there's a gene, but contained within that long gene is one little single base pair change. 9:02 It's called the single nucleotide polymorphism. 9:06 it's not a snip of hair. 9:09 The other thing is some people call it a single nucleotide variant. 9:14 So there's differences, but some of these SNPs have such profound implications. 9:24 That's like the take the trash out of the body portion of constipation. 9:29 Okay, so when we have that already, right? 9:32 Well, that means everything is, like you said, it's being released into our body. 9:36 These toxins that it is supposed to know how to get rid of, is not getting rid them the way that they should, or I love that you've said this a while ago, 9:44 to the capacity it should. 9:47 So, you may go to the bathroom and if you haven't listened to part one of constipation, she really does describe what exactly your poop should look like 9:58 and that goes for all people, all ages. 10:00 So I would definitely go back to episode one where she impacts what we're looking for. 10:05 But when we just have these, what did you call them, rabbit pellets. 10:09 right? 10:09 And so we think we're pooping and we thing we are fine, but it's actually a sign of constipation. 10:16 And aren't there other things that could look like consti-pation that don't? 10:20 Could you talk about that? 10:21 Yeah. 10:22 One thing though I think that's really important, a lot of people will say, I'm not constibated. 10:27 I have stool every day. 10:29 Well, they can have one of those distended totally distended and be impacted with a large stool burden, but they're having loose stool down the middle 10:42 of it, and they don't know that they are constipated. 10:46 So the other big thing that we need to think about when we think constepation is our mitochondria. 10:55 So, if you remember back from some kids in junior high, they'll hear about the batteries or the powerhouses of the cell. 11:05 Yes. 11:05 They make something called ATP, which is energy. 11:09 So my mind, when a child or an adult presents with constipation, I also think about mitochondria. 11:19 So, mitochondria making energy for those little muscles in the gut to peristals like we were talking about, what if your mitochondrion don't work like 11:33 they should? 11:33 So what would that look like for a child or an adult that might have a mitochondrial component and not necessarily a detoxification component? 11:47 So when we think about that, we'd think of children who might not be very coordinated because mitochondria help with the muscle control and coordination. 12:01 We think that children that really struggle with inattentiveness or ADD, ADHD, that constipation could be intermingled with that. 12:13 And weakness and fatigue So, those are some of those things. 12:20 Yeah. 12:23 So mitochondria are a big part of constipation, too. 12:28 You mentioned mitochondrial, and how would we find out that it is a mitochondrion deficiency? 12:36 What would you call that?
Vitamin C cleanse and magnesium support 12:41 Yeah, so in our context, when we do these little precision genetic panels, it's typically on the foundation methylation and wellness panel because the 12:54 wellness panels has the mitochondria on there. 12:57 But specifically, there is one SNP called SLC19A1. 13:03 That's a single SNPs that delivers Vitamin B9 into our mitochondria, if that's affected, we tend to get constipation issues, 13:14 but you need to look at the... 13:16 I think there's, I don't know how many mitochondrial SNPs there are, it's on that foundation methylation and wellness panel, 13:23 which is pretty reasonable. 13:26 And it will show us the entire mitochondrial cascade. 13:32 And so when we think about mitochondrionutrients, we use two kinds. 13:38 We use one called spectrum needs, which you don't have to be on the spectrum, but it's like a mitochondria multivitamin. 13:46 It's, like, a multi on steroids. 13:48 So it is great, and it really helps adults and children that have mitochondrian challenges. 13:55 because it has all kinds of goodies in it. 13:57 And then the other alternative is using something called mitocore. 14:01 Mitocor is like capsules that has mitochondrial nutrients in them. 14:07 But we look at that whole mitochondria panel, but you also look the patient in front of you and You know, parents are really good about like, 14:19 oh, yeah, they're struggling with this and that. 14:24 But you want to look at those two things. 14:27 You want look up mitochondria and you wanna look to add detox. 14:32 Absolutely. 14:33 Well, and okay, so I feel like the problem with like so many things that we talked about, which is why I love that you always talk about the genetics piece, 14:44 because I do think there are a lot of moms and dads who are doing the best they can. 14:49 They are hydrating them, like we discussed in episode one, they are giving them the proper nutrition. 14:55 But this this piece of like genetic piece can be that missing link of going like, I'm feeding them. 15:04 I am doing whatever. 15:06 And worse is that these foods that are really good can help your body detox, but now you're not properly pushing it out. 15:15 So there's so many factors that go into there. 15:18 What are some of the first things that they could start with, or how would they go about getting support in this next step, 15:27 in the next phase? 15:28 Two things that are very, very beneficial apart from, we mentioned glutathione and mitochondrial nutrients, but the go-to's for us are vitamin C for pooping, 15:44 okay? 15:45 So there's a form of vitamin C that is a very clean powder and you can actually work your way up to doing something called a vitamin c or ascorbic acid cleanse. 15:58 You don't just start taking a bunch of Vitamin C because it can give you an acid reflex. 16:02 So a lot of people go, well, why would I take an acid? 16:06 Well, vitamin C helps actually alkalinize your body. 16:11 So an alkaline body like a safe pH. 16:17 When we're building up all these toxins in our body, we are acidotic. 16:22 So we want to start alkalizing our body and, you know, the basics of eating like cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, 16:31 asparagus, Brussels sprouts, mustard greens, those kind of things, and using mustard. 16:39 But I love a form of vitamin C where typically you start with about half of a teaspoon, and you put it in about four ounces of water, 16:52 you stir it up, wait until the uppervescence goes away, the white goes, then you drink it the morning and do the same thing at night. 17:02 You do that for about two weeks. 17:04 And then there's this nifty little thing called an ascorbate sea cleanse that you do on a Saturday after you've spent the two week building up and stay 17:14 at home because If you're full of poop, you've been working on softening things up with the vitamin C, but you take the Vitamin C every 15 minutes until 17:26 you poop like you do for a colonoscopy prep. 17:30 Then there's a way to calculate how much vitamin c you or your child needs on a daily basis to keep your stool evacuated. 17:42 So that's one big piece. 17:45 And who would have thunk? 17:46 Vitamin C. 17:47 But it's amazing. 17:49 I love that. 17:51 Yeah, so there's a really famous guy, Dr. 17:54 Jaffee, and he's published things and come up with the propensity cleanse. 18:01 We love that. 18:02 Now, another very easy needle mover is magnesium. 18:07 Not all magnesiums are made alike, but a lot of times we'll use magnesium glycinate. 18:14 Specifically for constipation? 18:16 Yeah. 18:17 Yeah, okay. 18:18 Or you can do like a liquid, clean magnesium citrate. 18:23 OK? 18:24 OK. 18:24 So before we go into the magnesium, can we know why vitamin C, before doing the vitamin c cleanse, why do we need to do the pre-work for the first two weeks? 18:36 Yeah. 18:36 Yeah, so if you don't start exposing your body to this very powerful antioxidant, puts the fire out, I've had people that were like, 18:49 oh, I'm going to do this vitamin C cleanse, and they literally end up vomiting. 18:53 Oh, no. 18:55 So they're like okay, i'm just going do to this cleanse. 18:58 You have to start, vitamin c pulls water into the bowel, And what happens is for that two-week ramp up, you're slowly conditioning the gut. 19:11 You're moving some things out of the guy.t You prime the pump.You're already starting a little bit of a clean out. 19:19 And then after two weeks,you've situated and exposed your body to the vitamin C on a regular basis. 19:27 And one thing, you know, I just love my husband. 19:30 What he does for me is he makes my vitamin C at night and puts it by my sink in my bathroom. 19:37 So when I wake up in the morning, i drink my Vitamin C and it sat there all night. 19:41 It's okay. 19:43 And you can do the same thing for your kids. 19:45 You just mix it up, You have it on the counter. 19:48 Drink your vitamin C water. 19:50 And it's colorless if you mix it up. 19:54 It's a simple, very simple thing. 19:57 Now, once they start pooping, remember how I mentioned your gut gets distended. 20:06 You need to keep doing that or give yourself the amount of vitamin C that you need for at least six weeks so that, you know, 20:15 that the bowel has shrunk back down to its normal caliber. 20:22 and the little peristalsis works. 20:25 And you know, when you eat, like if you get blueberries or you give blueberries to a toddler, you should see the blueberry skins in the poop the very next day. 20:35 You should have rapid transit through the GI tract. 20:39 That's amazing. 20:40 Sorry, I didn't mean to derail you to going to Magnesium. 20:43 So going back to magnesium, what does magnesium do to help the body?
Closing advice and wrap-up 20:52 With constipation. 20:53 Yeah, with constapation, magnesium, most of us are globally depleted in magnesium. 21:01 And so there's different forms of magnesium but magnesium is also something quite lovely that helps you poop. 21:11 So if a person is having a lot of headaches, a lots of body aches, joint achs, back aching, along with constipation, I might choose magnesium, 21:22 in a certain form, over vitamin C. 21:26 But I love vitamin c. 21:27 And you put it all together, you get your squatty potty, and you ramp up on that until you're having good poop every day. 21:37 I loved that. 21:39 That's really amazing. 21:39 I really love the tangible ways that you've given us, whether we want to see some genetic susceptibility or genetic vulnerability, 21:48 and then we have the vitamin C. 21:49 You've really given, I would say, the handy-dandy tool belt of tricks that people can step into. 21:56 And so, Dr. 21:58 K, is there any closing words that have as we wrap up constipation? 22:04 I would just say don't settle for chronic abdominal pain and don�t settle chronic constipation because that's not healthy. 22:13 And if people tell you, �Oh, just take Lins-Sess. 22:16 You know, you're going to have this the rest of your life.� Don't believe that. 22:20 There's a reason for it and you need to lean into those causes, either mitochondrial, detoxification. 22:27 Just remember, your body is a symphony and it needs to work like a fine-tuned machine. 22:33 Thank you so much. 22:35 You're welcome. 22:36 My pleasure. 22:40 That's a wrap of part two of our constipation series. 22:43 I hope this conversation gave you a fresh understanding of just how much constepation can impact the whole body. 22:49 And most importantly, that there are answers beyond just live with it. 22:54 If you found this helpful, share this episode with another mom or friend who may be dealing with some of the same struggles. 23:00 You can find links to the resources and more in the show notes. 23:04 and don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss one of our upcoming episodes. 23:09 Until next time, remember, there's always hope for healing.
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