Mastering SIBO: Strategies For Gut Health And Lowering Inflammation

Shivan Sarna

Thank you so much, Laura. I love getting the word out about small intestine bacterial overgrowth.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

It sounds sexy, right?

Shivan Sarna

Not sexy, but feeling good and sexy. I am thrilled to share this information with everyone, and I am just calling all people who bloat. Okay. If you are thinking of SIBO, What? Is that IBS-spelled funny? Yes, but if you bloat, have constipation, diarrhea, or alternating constipation and diarrhea, I want you to listen up.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yes, this is for you. Now, Shivan, you are the author of the Amazon bestseller Healing SIBO. You are a TV host. You are the creator of many summits. You have done so much on topics like SIBO, digestion, gut microbiome, liver and gallbladder, lymphatics, dental health, fascia, and pain. You have covered the gamut in the summit world, and the crazy thing is that I can remember way back in 2017 or 18 or so, when I was first just discovering what the gut microbiome was, and I was working in my Western medicine clinic. I would sit there in between seeing patients and writing prescriptions, and I would watch your summit, and I would have it on in the background and watch it, then shut it off and go see another patient, and then come back and listen to this whole crazy concept of what the gut microbiome in the intestines and SIBO are and what is happening here. We have come full circle. If somebody had told me back then that I would be hosting my summits now, I would have thought they were crazy.

Shivan Sarna

I am so happy.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I know. I feel so good. I love it. You are one of my early mentors in the space, so we are going to jump into this conversation today. This is The Silent Killers Summit, where we are talking about all of the things that create chronic disease in the body and chronic inflammation. So SIBO is not necessarily a disease, but it is something that can steal nutrients from the body. It is something that can be hard to get rid of if you have chronic, hidden infections. I would like for us to start with our audience getting an understanding of what SIBO is.

Shivan Sarna

Sure, it is, as I said, small intestine bacterial overgrowth, and it is the overgrowth of certain microbes in the small intestine. There is also a term and a condition called IMO or IM0, which is Intestinal Methanogen Overgrowth. The treatments are similar to the cascade of symptoms: a similar. SIBO, which is caused by an overgrowth of hydrogen-producing or hydrogen-sulfide-producing microbes, will cause diarrhea, mixed constipation, and diarrhea. The intestinal methanogen overgrowth is more likely to cause constipation. There is an overgrowth of methane. Those are some of the symptoms and what they are called. There is, fortunately, a lot of research going on through Dr. Mark Pimentel and Dr. Allison Siebecker at the Mast program at Cedars-Sinai, and I believe these folks are going to find a cure for us very soon. We are praying for that. Some protocols are tried and true to reduce the bacterial overload, which can then reduce the symptoms as well as let you be the one that is consuming your nutrients instead of these organisms. Additionally, it is caused by something else, and it causes other things. That is why, people with Emeterio say, people who have adhesions who have recovered from food poisoning, which is the number one underlying cause of IBS, need to fix it, and we just need to manage it if the underlying cause is not fixable.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Let us talk about it. Yes, let us talk about those underlying causes because there is a whole bunch of them. You mentioned food poisoning. That is a huge one. Then there are things like surgeries. Could you go through some of the reasons why people might have SIBO, and then maybe it is a good time now to talk about how you might know you have it because it mimics a bunch of things? Like, it is hard to tell.

Shivan Sarna

It is hard to tell. It mimics Candida. It mimics SIFO, for example, a small intestine and fungal overgrowth. A lot of times, people have both SIBO and parasites. A lot of times, you cannot clear SIBO if you have not cleared your parasites; you cannot clear SIBO for stubborn cases if you have not cleared your mold. Mycotoxins infections overgrowth. A third of the people who do one treatment round of SIBO get better, and they are like history. But for people with this recurring scenario, a lot of times these other coexisting conditions are in play. How would you know? What would make us think that we might have SIBO? Like I said, bloating. You eat, and then you are bloated. You are nine months pregnant. You wake up with a flat tummy, and after lunch, you are like, What is up with these pants so often anymore? that bloating is one of the biggest telltale signs. Yes, you can have bloating from other things as well, like parasites or ovarian cancer, God forbid. There are other reasons why bloating may happen, but that is that pain is the most common symptom for SIBO and IMO, along with constipation, diarrhea, alternating constipation, and diarrhea. Irregular bowel.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yes, it is just that people are miserable with this.

Shivan Sarna

It is miserable. It is a lifestyle killer, for sure. It has other long-term medical implications, like robbing you of those nutritional properties of food because they are getting to it first. It can also lead to stressing your liver. It can lead to, I call it, weird B12 levels, anemia, low ferritin levels, or weirdly high B12 levels, even though you are not supplementing. It is like your body’s not absorbing the B12. You have the microbes do some weird stuff to the vitamins, and low ferritin is something to be aware of because that is your iron reserve.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yes. Why would it be important? The obvious is that it is uncomfortable, but why would we want to deal with SIBO? It is a condition that can lead to other diseases, and, as you said, it is caused by other things. Yes, but why would it be important to deal with this?

Shivan Sarna

Well, first of all, let us say it is constipation. You do not want those toxins floating around in your body. You are trapped in your colon for any longer than you need to. If it is diarrhea, you are losing electrolytes. You are not able to absorb your nutrition because it is passing so quickly through you. Diagnosis and constipation are, unto themselves, great reasons to get this taken care of. But it can also lead to rosacea restless leg syndrome. There are vitamin and iron levels. It is just that they have done studies with different populations. It tends to be more prevalent in women. It is affecting the microbiome. Bottom line. That is the best way of describing it. It is bad players in your microbiome that are blocking out the rest of your village and your microbiome. 

We all know that the microbiome is impacting your emotions, your brain health, and your dental health. You want to get that microbiome as healthy as possible and not be run by these bullies. Non-medical term. What is so cool is that when I asked Dr. Pimentel what happens when people do get that bacterial load overgrowth lower and more into a negative SIBO breath test, the microbiome often comes back into alignment by itself within weeks. Also, when that happens, fructose intolerance and food intolerance often go away, and all of a sudden you can eat more. Of course, you are not miserable, and you are not bloated. All those things are great reasons.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Absolutely. Let us talk about those microbes, those bad guys, for a moment. When we think of the human microbiome and what we are talking about, when we are looking at the current research and what is available, most of the slaves are in the large intestine, and the microbiome generally resides in the large intestine. However, we know the microbiome stretches from the mouth to the rectum, and we have a course of microbiome on our skin. We have a microbiome in our eyes, our noses, and our genitals. There is a microbiome everywhere. But when we think of the gut microbiome, and we think about taking probiotics and fixing leaky gut. We are talking about a large intestine problem. But this is very different because this is a small-intestine problem. Just for our consumers of health care here, who might not know, we have a mix of practitioners and consumers. For consumers of health care, your small intestine does some important work. Your small intestine is where most of your absorption of nutrients occurs. 

When you commented, you said, Those guys are eating first. They are taking away from you. when you are eating that good food and you are conscious of eating organic food and eating lots of clean vegetables and probiotic-rich foods, and you are doing all these things to support yourself. Then it gets to the small intestine to be absorbed. Those bad guys are there, taking from you. Tell me a little bit more about those bad guys. Were they already part of us? They just grew up, or were they introduced to food poisoning exposure? Or how did that happen?

Shivan Sarna

Okay. It is part of the normal microbiome, the normal healthy microbiome, but they have overgrown and overtaken the neighborhood like a gang. For the food poisoning, I want to clarify something super important about this. Food poisoning. This is what happened to me. I was five, got food poisoning in India, and came home. I live in New York City, and my parents and I went to a fancy little school, and we went to a farm in upstate New York for a visit, like city slickers. We were going to go to the farm. We were milking the cows, which is adorable. I took a sip of the milk without it being pasteurized. I got very bad food poisoning again and, unsupervised, whatever. The bottom line is that I started to get constipation around seven years old. It impacted my whole microbiome, and it impacted my migrating motor complex. The migrating motor complex is what sweeps out food and bacteria from the small intestine; they call it the cleansing wave or the sleeping wave. Think of a white tablecloth and a fancy restaurant, and the waiter has a crumb sweeper that gets rid of the bread crumbs before your next course. That is getting all of that out there is the migrating motor complex. 

When you have food poisoning, there is a molecular mimicry that happens that confuses, believe it or not, the inside of your small intestines and makes it go slower so that that migrating motor complex does not operate as efficiently. Dr. Mark Pimentel has proven that the number one underlying cause of IBS is the minor migrating motor complex. Not working is SIBO. That is a little bit of how autoimmune diseases can come into play. That is a little bit of one of the biggest underlying causes. For so long, I was told I had to walk three miles and do fiber. I could barely move at some point. and taking fiber simply made it worse. I also remember eating an apple. Going to the doctor is supposed to keep the doctor away. I was just, like, miserable. It made me worse because it was a high Fodmap, a specific carbohydrate that the bacteria love. 

If you have ever had food poisoning, let us just wrap this idea up and say that you were not the same afterward. You might have SIBO. On the other hand, I talk to people all the time, and they are like, Oh, I have never had food poisoning. I am like, Have you ever had the stomach flu? Oh yes, I remember that one time, so similar. Okay, consider that food poisoning. I would. Then, once you have SIBO from food poisoning, you are more likely to get food poisoning. If you and I and three of our dear friends sat at a dinner table and I got sick, but we all ate the same thing, and we go, Oh, it could not be food poisoning because Laura is not sick. It was me being more susceptible to it. You all had immune systems that could fight it off.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Oh, absolutely. It is interesting. This is a good moment to talk about the subjectivity of how we define things in our minds. That is a perfect example of how I have never had food poisoning. But I have had the stomach flu a couple of times, or yes, I have had diarrhea before. Well, most diarrhea is caused by your body trying to flush out some microbe, toxin, or something that you ingested somehow, usually. Then there is that concept of constipation as well, where people say, I am not constipated. How often do you go? I go regularly, every three days. that is about.

Shivan Sarna

It. Absolutely. You are not sitting around talking about poop to your friends usually. We normalize.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I do. But I know you are very special.

Shivan Sarna

Did you?

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Poop today? Did you poop today?

Shivan Sarna

Yes, of course. Thank you. I sat in front of my nail tech when I was on TV and had to have, like, perfect nails. They took these microscopic, like, shots of my fingers. So, it had to be stupid and commercially perfect. Anyway, we went to our lot, and we sat in front of each other for an hour every two weeks, if not more. We never talked about it. A year in, we started to talk about it, and she had SIBO and I had SIBO. I was like, We could have been helping each other this whole time, so do talk about it. Get your kids to feel more comfortable about it, and your spouse, and all that. It is very important to not just keep it in this secret interior of yours in the bathroom.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I know it is so funny that it is so taboo. I always say pooping is the great equalizer, just like in the DMV. We all have to go to the DMV, no matter what walk of life you are from. We all have to poop. It is the great equalizer. We all have it in common. People do love to talk about it. In my programs, when we start talking about poop, which is like every week, people just light up the chat, and they are just so excited to talk about it because it is a safe space to talk about it. Because we are talking about. You guys are talking about poop. 

Shivan Sarna

That is right.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

It is important.

Shivan Sarna

When you get it right, you will feel better. Just that is a baseline you will feel when you are eliminating properly.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

You will. I want to touch more. I want to explore more. Why did I bring up a topic about SIBO? Why did I bring the topic of SIBO to a Silent Killers Summit? When we are talking about the things that are underlying all chronic health conditions, which are chronic hidden infections, all the toxins that are around the world, which I have lots of talks on, toxins on this summit, nutrient deficiencies, and then chronic traumas and stress that affect the body. When it comes to SIBO, it plays a role in two buckets. The talks are, excuse me, the chronic hidden infection bucket because hidden infections like parasites can perpetuate or prevent your body from being able to clear SIBO. What would you say? Then I want to talk about nutrient deficiencies in a second, but what would you say to people who say I had SIBO, I cleared it, it came back, I did another treatment, I took antibiotics, I did a Low-Fodmap diet, I did an Elemental diet, and blah, blah, blah? It came back, it came back, it came back. What would you say to these people when it is just so relentless?

Shivan Sarna

Okay, Dr. Allison Siebecker is a world-renowned SIBO expert with whom I do many projects. She, for my birthday, got me a T-shirt that said, Are you on a Prokinetic? In all of our webinars, I asked that question so often. The number one reason why people do not relapse is if they are on a prokinetic. I talk to people all the time who talk just like you describe it. Then it breaks my heart to find out that they were not on prokinetic. They have been relapsing into a prokinetic and moving that migrating motor complex. When I say moves, it is more like creating a symphony, a syncopated movement within the migration, within the migrating motor complex in the gut. It is not always a laxative. It helps that micro peristalsis sweep out things from the small intestine. Being on a prokinetic is the number one way to prevent SIBO. Unless you can just prevent, like, adhesions and experiences and food poisoning to begin with.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yes. The other thing that I would fish for that I was fishing for in this talk too was have you done parasite cleanses? Have you done something like go in and look for those hidden things that can perpetuate the regrowth problem of SIBO? What have you seen or talked to?

Shivan Sarna

A lot of people, once they clear the parasites, SIBO goes away, which is interesting or it is a treatment that becomes much easier, much more effective, and they only have to do one round, and they cleared it within that one round after tons and tons of efforts of doing multiple rounds. That is another thing: doing multiple rounds of either herbs, very specific ones, antibiotics, very specific ones, or that elemental diet was a liquid, which is a liquid amino acid diet for a certain period. Those are the three main treatments, and it is odd, but because we are used to taking antibiotics or something, call me in the morning and you are well after like eight pills or something. But with SIBO, multiple rounds to help reduce those levels of overgrowth are often necessary.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yes, it can be a whole thing, and it is important that you are looking at all sides of this, that you are making sure your upper digestion is supported, that you are working on it, clearing parasites, and just know that you are probably never going to see your parasites on a gut test. They are very good at not being excreted. They do not want to leave your body. It is hard to see them on a gut test unless you catch them in an egg or something in some part of the life cycle of the parasite. That little section of stool that you collected from the whole stool that day, that little tiny bit that you collected, had some debris or DNA from a parasite, which is hard to find.

Shivan Sarna

Just scream intelligence. That is why they are still around. Just like mycotoxins. There is a lot of sabotage they can do to your brain, I think, and your motivation.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yes. Well, in the last few minutes that we have here in this first part of our talk, could you spend some time talking to us about how diet might influence the development or treatment of SIBO? Because what you are eating becomes very important, whether you develop it, if it recurs, or if you can get rid of it.

Shivan Sarna

The thing about diet is that carbs are what they are, what the microbes live on. Specific carbohydrate fodmaps: you will see low-fodmap diets for IBS all over the place. Monash University is a great resource, but I need to clarify that diet only controls symptoms. It does not reduce the overload. You want to go easy on yourself but do not beat yourself up. Because I have seen SIBO panic happen so many times with people, and this was me also, like if I eat this bite of food, this one bite like that apple that day. I remember how I felt before I ate that apple. I was just like, What the hell? I was hungry, and I did not know what else to eat. I was down to just a few foods. SIBO is when it comes to diet; it controls your symptoms; it does not control the relapse percent; nor does it cause SIBO; it will make your symptoms worse. You start to think, It is getting worse because, in three days, you can often get your symptoms under control and feel better.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

This is important for people to understand. You did not eat your way into it, and you are not going to eat your way out of it. This whole concept of food as medicine is one of those things that I get frustrated with because you cannot solve every health problem with food. If you could, all of you health people who are here, information seeking and trying to figure this out, you would not have already solved this because many of the people watching now are very healthy eaters. Yes, food as medicine is an important concept, but know that it is only part of the solution. It is not the whole solution.

Shivan Sarna

Exactly.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Such a big thing. This first part of our talk has been so enlightening. Shivan, thank you so much for joining us today for this talk on SIBO. To our audience. I hope you found our conversation insightful and helpful. If you are a summit purchaser, stay here because we are about to dive even deeper into this discussion with Shivan. If you are not, click on the button on this page to get access to a continuation of this conversation and many others, and get the tools you need to reclaim your health. If you are watching this continuation of my talk with Shivan Sarna, thank you for being a valuable member of our community, and we are going to dive back in.  We have gone all over the place with SIBO, and we are talking about how it does impact your health and prevent you from being able to feel good, live your best life, look good, and feel good in your clothes because it is so irritating. You started to touch on nutrient deficiencies, and you talked about how they do weird things to your B vitamins.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Anything else that you want to share with our audience in terms of the long-term effects of SIBO on nutrients in the body and how this can set you up for other chronic health conditions? If we were looking at the cascade of development of SIBO from long-term SIBO to the development of other things, what would you share with our audience?

Shivan Sarna

I would share. These are going to be generalities. I would share that. There is a buildup of lipopolysaccharides, which can lead to brain fog. It can lead to stressing your liver, fatty liver, hair loss, and psoriasis. There are a lot of reasons to take on SIBO, not to mention that you are going to be highly motivated because it does not make you feel great. But there are a lot of reasons, and some of these do not sound so devastating, like cancer or something. God forbid. However, you want to create that context in your microbiome and in your body to be as healthy as possible. Here is something treatable, that does have studies behind it, and is, in most cases, treatable, I should say. A box check, get that thing taken care of so you can move on to other things. Also, once you clear your SIBO, you are going to have more energy to clear those parasites. I know a lot of people who will treat both of them simultaneously and just get great results. One less thing for your body to be burdened with is important.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yes, and I think this is a great space to segue into treatments for SIBO because you have done a lot of personal research around this. You have interviewed the world’s experts on this. You are friends with the world’s experts on this. You have treated yourself, you have helped, and thousands of people get connected with practitioners to help with this. Let us dive into treatments like what works, what does not work, what is bogus, what is a myth, and what is the solution.

Shivan Sarna

First of all, we already talked about it, but I want to reiterate SIBO’s food: you did not eat your way into it, and you are not going to eat your way out of it. That is one thing. The SIBO diet is designed to help you manage your symptoms. Now the herbs that have been studied, and there are other ones too, like garlic, which is high in fodmap. That would mean that you caused symptoms but in the form of allicin, which is the active ingredient with garlic that has been shown to do well. There is oil of oregano that does a beautiful job. There are certain combinations like that. Then there are some herbs; they are medicinal-like foods there. You can buy them over the counter, but they are very powerful, so do not underestimate that. That usually takes a month for the gas levels to come down, whereas if you do the antibiotics, that is usually a two-week course. Cool that you can buy them over the counter. It takes a little bit longer. They are not super expensive, but they are not inexpensive. The antibiotic is rifaximin for hydrogen-producing microbes. Then rifaximin in neomycin is a good combination for methane overgrowth.

That takes two weeks, and it is three times a day, and rifaximin stays in the small intestine, which is interesting. It is a very special antibiotic. I know antibiotics are polarizing. I also know they can save your life. Of course, we want to avoid them as much as possible. However, rifaximin is very special, and you can take it multiple times without reducing its efficacy, you do not tend to get immune to it, so to speak. Then the third thing, which is the most effective, is the elemental diet. It is also the most obnoxious. By the way, if you have great insurance, often rifaximin is paid for, but if you have limited insurance or certain insurance, it can be extremely expensive. Some Canadian pharmacies can help facilitate better prices. But the elemental diet is worth a conversation because it is a liquid diet that you exclusively do for about 17 days. It used to be disgusting. It used to taste like vomit. I am not kidding, because amino acids can be sickly sweet. They can taste super gross. A lot of people have in the past few years put out a lot of effort to make a better-tasting, elemental diet, which is fantastic. It used to be what people put in feeding tubes, and now we are consuming it like a shake. That is a stretch. But you are using it as a meal substitute if you are trying to give your gut arrest. Then if you are doing it as a treatment, it is the only thing you will consume for those 17 days. It usually does the best job of reducing the bacteria. The other kills the bacteria, or, like, shoots them away. The elemental diet starves the bacteria because you will absorb the nutrients from the elemental diet so quickly that they do not get a chance to feed the overgrowth.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

It is not fodmaps. It is not carbohydrates that the bacteria are feeding on. It is like you are not giving them their favorite food source, but an elemental diet is not for wimps. This is a serious thing. You are committing to not eating anything else for almost three weeks.

Shivan Sarna

Yes. a lot of and also your experience, the elements, like, let us say you do day one and you are like, Oh, I cannot do this. There is a lifecycle to it; you may not like it the first day, but maybe by the third day you start to crave it. It is a very interesting process that you go through emotionally and physically when you are doing the elemental diet. I just want to say, Do not give up on those first couple of days if you.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yes. You are purging more than just; this becomes like a detox experience. It is like your emotional detox. You are purging toxins out of the body. It is a whole thing because you are not putting substances in the body that are difficult to digest. Everything is getting a big rest. Now your body can focus on so much more. You get a lot more out of it.

Shivan Sarna

Yes, exactly.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

That is the thing you have seen work the best. Now, how about preventing the recurrence of SIBO and maintaining gut balance? Let us go into that topic.

Shivan Sarna

Prokinetics, which I will define. I know I said it before, but I did not tell you what it was. Things like ginger is a prokinetic. There is Motegrity, which is a prescription. There are a variety of over-the-counter prokinetics that are easily accessible and have come onto the scene in the past few years. Also, there is a formulation called Aerogas, which is a variety of different herbs. There is a wonderful prokinetic in that too.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

You can get that on Amazon these days. 

Shivan Sarna

You cannot. There was a slight pause in its availability in the marketplace, but I think it is back available. It may have Russian letters on it, so do not worry about it. It is usually fine. Also, eBay has strict counterfeit rules, so if I cannot find it on, full scripts, or whatever, I usually go to eBay to find it. They have, and I have pretty good luck there.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Wow. Okay. I see. Anything else on prevention and then maintaining gut balance, like once you have been through this?

Shivan Sarna

Well, avoid food poisoning, people. At Thanksgiving and Christmas, in summer barbecues and buffets, eat the food that is cold and hot. This should be cold and that should be hot. Like eating from the center of the casserole dish that has the Bunsen burner, or whatever they are called underneath it. You want to avoid food poisoning. My husband and I just went out for a birthday dinner, and we had salads, we both think we got food poisoning from the salad.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

There is so much with lettuce.

Shivan Sarna

Lettuce, I am glad they wash it. What are they washing it with, and what did they put in the sink before that? I just got turned off by the lettuce idea, like this week.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yes, I know you could not grow your lettuce indoors so easily with those towers. I am all over the place on social media and the internet, and I keep getting feelings and tugs that I want to grow some salad inside my house.

Shivan Sarna

Good idea. I think it is a good idea, I watched a whole documentary about lettuce, and I was like, Ooh.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I watched a documentary about any food that you are just going to want to grow yourself. Honestly. Yes. Maintaining gut balance, then. After that, let us talk about life after SIBO.

Shivan Sarna

Life after SIBO. You are going to be able to expand your diet; eat the rainbow for sure. Your prebiotics, ultimately, are fibers. The more you can get in, the better, and rotate that, spin the plate, get about, and get some food that you do not usually eat in the produce department. You do not have to do a lot. Tom O’Bryan will tell you to go get the things that look so weird and chop them up, make a hash, or put them in ice cube trays, and then throw one of those little hashes of different root vegetables in your bouillon or your soup. Make a stir-fry with it. Get that diversity going. But I know it is going to be hard until you clear the SIBO because it will probably make you feel worse because of the symptoms from the fibers. You want to do so as soon as you can get as much diversity into your diet as possible.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Okay. Shivan, can you talk to us now about life after the resolution of SIBO? What happens now?

Shivan Sarna

Start eating other things. Enjoy some different fibers; enjoy not having to eat only three or bring your food to every potluck. Expand your diet, maybe do not go crazy in the beginning, but like an experiment, you have confidence, do not let the trauma. I want to say trauma, not to say that eating something could cause trauma or not even something, but yes, there are a lot of emotional ramifications to having such a restricted diet for so long for some people. Feel free to expand your diet and relax a little bit. You want to keep feeding that microbiome as much diversity as possible. Some great tips are, for example, what Dr. Tom O’Brien taught me: go walk around the produce section and get all those weird veggies and roots that you would never normally pick up and go home. Peel them, chop them into chunks, do whatever you need to do, and put them all into a mash. Then put them in ice cube trays and freeze them. Then, when you are making a stock or a stir fry, throw them in there. You get some different, truly diverse prebiotics to feed your gut microbiome.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

These days, it is so easy to find fun recipes. If there is a weird vegetable, you do not know what it is. Just look it up and say recipes for whatever, Jerusalem artichokes. Go. 

Shivan Sarna

Yes. Exactly. The microbiome does come back into more homeostasis and balance after that overgrowth is gone. You can expect to feel better. You can expect a lot of different health things to improve and give you more of a foundation to be able to fight other infections.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Well, you can also expect a decrease in the incidence of the development of chronic inflammatory diseases. You can expect nutrient deficiencies to start to clear up. You can expect energy to go up. You can expect the brain to function better. So much improves once you solve this. Not to mention mood. There is nothing like a grumpy, bloated person who is not absorbing nutrients. That is not good for anybody’s relationship. Well, so final words—any final words of hope? Also, please let our audience know where they can find your work, where they can find your book, where they can get a hold of you, and where they can see your upcoming projects.

Shivan Sarna

Thank you so much. The word of hope is do not give up. There is a science to support these treatments. There are breath tests that you can take to find out how much the overgrowth is. There is a way through. Do not think it is impossible, because it is not. Even if you have an underlying cause that cannot be addressed or cleared up, you can certainly manage your SIBO so you will feel 100% better. Individual results will vary. Then how can you find me? At sibosos.com, the S.O.S. has come to mean save ourselves because it is an empowering place. We are pro practitioners for sure, but there are a lot of things that SIBO you can do yourself, which is very encouraging. It is SIBO S.O.S. and my book Healing SIBO is on Amazon and a variety of other booksellers, published by Penguin Random House. It takes you through everything we have been talking about today.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yes, it is amazing. You always have another summit in the pipeline, like something’s coming up next. I think you told me you have a Hormone Summit coming up in 2024. So, yes. There is one coming that I am speaking about. That is the Microbiome Rescue.

Shivan Sarna

Gut Rescue Summit; An evidence-based solution to finally get your health back.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yes. It is happening almost at the same time as this summit. Look for it. We will be sending emails about it. It is so good to have you here, Shivan. It is, just like I said, a full-circle moment. I am honored to know you. I am honored to be your friend outside of what we are doing here. Just thank you for being one of those people who opened the door for what our audience is experiencing today. You are a pioneer in the summit space, and you helped normalize this process by saying everybody should be watching and doing summits because it is a great way to get information out there. All those years you had in the TV world working on the Shopping Network, It was a shopping network. 

Shivan Sarna

Yes. HSN.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

She was your favorite host on HSN. She took all those skills and started producing health summits. Thank you, Shivan. This has been wonderful. Until next time, everyone. Take good care. Bye now.