What Probiotics Can Do for You! – The 5 Non-Negotiables Series (Part 5)

Introduction to Probiotics 0:00

All right, welcome back another episode. I'm Dr. Roddy. We're here back today talking to you guys about the last non-negotiable. Do you want to recap the ones we've already done? Great. No, now I have to remember. Protein, hydration, strength training. Sleep. And then now we have probiotics. Probiotics, yeah. Obvious people, they know what they are. Sometimes people don't know they what are, so we're going to kind of dive in and go over some of the misconceptions, some things that we do for probiotic that helps us, things we've given our kids either when they're ill or from a preventative standpoint.

So why don' you start out by explaining what a probiotc is, just in layman's terms. So a probiotic is either spore-based or yeast, and it's bacteria. It's good bacteria that helps feed your gut microbiome. So, a lot of times, people have different situations or different foods that they eat or difference stressors in their life that affects the balance in they're naturally occurring microbiomes. And the probiotics helps keep that homeostasis, that balance. So it's something that is essential. It's not necessarily essential that you have to take a supplement for a probiotic.

You can take it in with your nutrition. With your food, yeah. Which is actually a better way to do it. But a lot of times, because we don't have the naturally occurring fermented foods in our regular diet every day, we need to supplement with a pre or probiotics. Right. So 70% of the body's immune system lives in the gut. That's why it's important for that arena of nutrients in your gut to be at a high level so your body can fight infection, whether bacterial or viral. and whatnot. So we're going to talk today about how some very common conditions that people suffer from and they medicate for, not to say that could be completely cured with a high level of probiotic, but if they had a probiotics on a daily basis in their diet or supplementation, they would feel better.

And this is not just for adults, also for kids. Why don't you name some common foods that are rich in probiotcs? So kefir, sauerkraut, anything that is actually pickled without vinegar has to be pickled with salt. The vinegar actually, which is really strange because vinegar apparently kills- Like what's pickled in vinegar only? Well, there's some pickles that are- Just in vinegars? Yeah, just in vinegar. There's some that are just salt. They're some fermentation processes that use more vinegar than salt, but the ones that have more salt than vinegar is better.

Food Sources and Prebiotics 3:00

But apple cider vinegar itself is fermented. So I don't really understand why that. Yeah. That's weird, right? So, I never understood that and then there's probiotic and rich foods like Nancy's cottage cheese is probiotics. Kimchi. Which is amazing. I wonder how much a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, what's the probiotic content? CFU, something like that. Versus if you took a capsule of a pre-improbiotic. Well, I think that... Yeah, that's a good question. That's such an easy way of doing it.

You can put it on your salad. And then we're going to talk about supplements later. Let's say you just don't like any of those foods or you can't incorporate them in your diet because either you don' like them or your family doesn't. How do you supplement? When to supplement, what's good supplement. this and the second component being a prebiotic. So let's dive into that. Give an analogy of that? So I think that from the research I've done and my own experience, I that spore-based probiotics are the most efficient because when you think about it, if you buy a probiotic, normally they're in the refrigerator in that in, the grocery store, right?

Or wherever you by it. They're refrigerated. You have to be where they come on ice, Right? Well, that doesn't make any sense. Yeah. Because if you take that supplement and it goes through your gut, your core body temperature is above room temperature. And then the stomach, it's not gonna work. So if find a probiotic that doesn't need to be refrigerated, like a spore-based probiotics, and they'll say spores based on there, that is actually going to get into your got. The other ones that are refrigerate don't even make it to your guy.

That's interesting why they would make a, You go to Sprouts or Whole Foods, there's a huge section of refrigerator probiotics. And they're like, oh my gosh, you had to run home and put this in the refrigerator before? They all die. So prebiotic is another vital component. I think people don't realize you hear probiotic. It's marketed. Its advertised in foods and this and that. But without a pre biotic, You're not really getting the absorption, right? Prebiotic is kind of read an analogy. It's like the fertilizer that allows the probiotics, the plant.

The prebiotics is a fertilizer. You have pre biotic rich foods or supplementation. Your probiotic then actually does its job. Right. So what about some pre-biotic enriched foods? Anything high fiber, it's prebiotic. Let's name some like apples are good. Apples are really good, any cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, rutabagas, yeah, and any leafy greens. And then what I like to do is I add flax seed to one meal, like whole flex seed, at least to 1 meal a day on top of anything.

I mean, you can put it in anything, so fleshy is great. You can shake, put in a salad, anything yeah. And so that's a really, we run out of, everyone eats flaxseed in our house. We run of it so fast because it's just, it is a real easy way to add fiber to your diet. And again, you have to have the prebiotic in order for the probiotic to do its job to really benefit your health and your gut. But the problem goes with people that are increasing their fiber, what they forget to do is to increase their hydration.

Because what happens is people take all this fiber. I see this with young vegetarians very often where they eat a lot of fiber and then they have a lotta stomach digestive issues because they're not drinking enough water to poop everything out and they are getting constipated. So probiotics have a lot of different benefits. So depending on what you struggle with, whether it's weight loss or anxiety or just general digestive problems can determine how much and what type of probiotic. There's a lotta different types of proteins.

A lotta of the different bacteria that you can ingest. And there's one specific for, let's say, mental health conditions versus something different for digestive issues. Yeah, there's two specific ones for menopause. Menopaus and things like that. So let's talk a little bit about probiotic importance for metabolism and weight maintenance and whether it's weight loss is somebody's goal or weight gain is someone's goals because it could equally be. What are your thoughts on some of that? Well, a lot of the probiotic formulations now are being packaged as like GLP-1 agonist type probiotics where they help promote those receptors that help with your metabolism and your hunger, your leptin and ghrelin hormones, which are your hungering satiety.

Supplement Types and Dosage 8:00

Sure. That sounds good. Let's go with it. Satiety hormones. So a lot of them do work with those. They help with insulin resistance, especially for women going through perimenopause and menopausal. I mean, there's a seven to eight, sometimes 10 pound weight loss during the whole peri-menopase phase before they even reach menopsis because of the gut bacteria itself. And that is mostly because the inflammation rises. So as their gut microbiome is getting imbalanced and things aren't functioning as well, and the foods that they are eating are not feeding their microbiomes and they're not supplementing with anything, their guts starts to, they get hungrier, right?

And they inflamed, like you said, that's a big thing. And that causes the hunger, causes cravings, which causes inflammation. Yeah, all that stuff. Cortisol levels go up. Everything goes up We're going to talk about the mental health side of it and a little bit separately, but digestive health, immunity health. Metabolism and weight loss or weight gain. I looked up chronic conditions like IBS, chronic inflammatory conditions that can be benefited if somebody is on a consistent diet. And I think the biggest thing, it's easy for me and I know for you, but it is hard to get into it.

But the big thing that I see and hear, not being in clinic as much to see it on a daily basis, people will search something and then they'll just stop. They just won't be consistent. There's no consistency. And then they're like, yeah, it didn't work. I tried taking a multivitamin. It just didn' really feel any different. So I was doing B12 injections for a couple of weeks, and then I stopped. Or I wasn't at GLP, then, I stop because I forgot or I ran out. If there's one thing that you really shouldn't stop is this, because this really impacts so much of your immune system, which can block you from a lot of different things if you're consistent with it.

Don't stop when you start, right? Just continue doing that. So, okay, I got some rapid fire true and false questions. But I want to talk about irritable bowel syndrome really quick. from personal experience because I'll step out if you want to talk about it. So I read this recent research article about IBS and there's IBC, which is when they have Irritable bowel syndrome with constipation. There's IBSD, which is Irridable Bowel Syndrome with Diarrhea. And then there's, IbsM, Which is a mixture of constibation and diarrhea.

What does the M stand for? Mix. Oh, okay. When you go to any gastroenterologist, usually they'll say, or any primary care, whatever, any general allopathic doctor, they will say I.B.S. is just in your head. But it really is in your head because it's like the communication between your vagus nerve, which runs from your brain directly to your gut, gets cut off. Because of the stress you're having here. Yes, because your mind stress creates stress in you gut. And so that stress throws everything off But when you hear it's in your head, it kind of sounds like you don't really have it.

Right. That's yes. Versus actually this is coming from what's going on between your ears here that's causing your stomach to be all out of whack. Yeah. So interesting. They have medications now for IBS, C, D, and M, but if they go on a really good spore-based probiotic, It helps a lot. They won't even need the medication. Yeah. That's great. And then, of course, you have to do your mindful exercises, breathing exercises. Your parasympathetic stimulators, that kind of stuff. Brain to stop running.

OK, so true or false, all probiotics are the same. false. Why? Because some are spore based. Some are not. Um, some can actually stay in the gut and get in, get into the got and stay there and some don't even make it into. And then there's different strains, different types. We'll talk about that in a few minutes. Like the different strings of probiotics that are good for this condition, which is that condition. So they're not all the same. If you find one at the store, what's there may not be right for you.

It's not gonna harm you, it's still gonna take something, right? But think about what your body needs and your buddy just may need just something for maintaining your wellness. You're not doing it because of a reaction to something. The other thing too is a lot of people like to eat Greek yogurt for their probiotic, which is great option. But you have to look on the back and see if it says heat pasteurized. If it is heat pasturize, There's no live cultures. It has to say live and active cultures in there to have that probiotic benefit.

Can you get all the probiotics you need through food? If you're eating enough fermented foods, yeah, I mean, it's possible, but with the standard American diet, which means sad, the acronym is sad which is pretty sad. The standard american diet does not have enough, you know, But a lot of cultures, they have our culture has a lotta fermented food. You know Indian culture does all kinds of African Koreans. Yeah. More is better, true or false? Not necessarily. All you need is between 10 and 50 billion CFUs on a daily basis.

And then for therapeutic use, you'd need over 50 Billion. Yeah, and that balance when you first start taking a probiotic could be a little tricky, right? Because you could get a lot of diarrhea when first started, probably like, Whoa, this is too strong for me. Maybe I should just do half the dosage that it's asking me to take.

Gut Health, IBS, and Weight 14:00

Because that's something once you find that thing that doesn't upset your stomach. You don't feel that kind of bloating or obviously if you have kind more diarrhea symptoms, then you back off. But sometimes you need to rid your body of that. And then what happens is like, there's this one specific brand that I've taken and it's a spore-based probiotic. It'll say, start with one capsule a day for the first week. Do not leave the house. Stay in your bathroom for four days. And then it'll say, you know, after a second week, add a- You don't take responsibility for your plumbing.

Sign this waiver. You have to sign a waiver before you take this provide. But for, and some people, they will be really sensitive to it, but I started like two capsules a day right away and I didn't have any symptoms of like extra pooping or anything like that. It's good for people to know that because it can be rough. Yeah, it also, I feel like, well, if I need it I needed it. So I probably just need to let it out. Yeah, for sure. Okay. Unless it's uncontrollable. Yeah. That would be terrible. And we're doing like IBS, I B S A or D.

What's an explosive diarrhea? Oh yeah. No kidding. Uh, okay. Probiotics work instantly. Not really. No. You gotta take it for a while. Your body's gotta get used to taking it and your gut's got to absorb it. Well, you're nurturing your microbiome, so it's like watering a plant. It's not gonna immediately... We talked about, because of the prebiotic, you mentioned earlier about the hydration, that's a really big thing. If you're taking a probiotic or prebiotic, making sure you are getting plenty of water so you don't feel the downside of too much fiber and all that stuff.

the prebiotic through food. Like we said, you don't have to supplement that if you, if don' want to. So, okay, let's go into the, the gut and brain connection that, that yeah, access that connection. You talked about the vagus nerve, which is that nerve that basically tells you to be in that fight or flight or that chill out parasympathetic rest and digest. And when people are in that anxiety or at a peak, you know, whether it's a panic attack or a peek or whatever it is, your vagus nerve is like, firing and you're just overly stimulated.

And, and, uh, this has a direct correlation with your, gut and your gut health and all that other stuff. So it actually completely changes your microbiome without even you even knowing it. Yeah. Even, I mean, it, so your micro biome is so sensitive, like if you and I start living together, we'll have similar microbiomes. So you actually- We already talked about that once, episode, and it has never happened. That'll never happen again. It's never happening. We lived together in college once. I like my microbiome the way it is, yes.

And I don't want anything to do with your microbiom at all. Yeah, my micro biome is too good for yours. No, I dunno, that's what you think. Walking out your weighted vest all around the house. Seriously. He makes fun of my weighted vests. Oh my God. You know, have you heard of the stool microbioma transplants? No. They have these. Justin, have you heard of that? Thank you. When he's like, I do that every day. He's saying open up the window. Actually dogs help with your microbiome too. Oh, just just being around dogs.

But yeah, there's companies where if you want to have better athleticism or you know, better metabolism, different things. You can actually get the stool of different types of people that are high performers, high athletes. And what do you do with it? You take a pill of it. What? Yes, it's insane. We need to fact check that. It's so crazy. That's crazy. So you guys, we have some really exciting news. Since the SNAP benefits have ended, We have decided that we're going to do a food drive for United Food Bank locally in Arizona.

If you bring in five cans of non-perishable foods or just five Either non-perishable foods or five cans, five items into our clinics, any one of our locations, you get a free exam and x-ray in our clinic. So just make sure when you call you tell them that you want to donate food to get the free examine x ray and they'll get you signed up. So go on our website, backfithealth.com for more information and to request an appointment. Okay, serotonin. So seratonin is your feel good hormone. If your body is doing well, your gut and your microbiome is healthy.

Your body releases more serotonin, which allows you to feel better and reduces your cortisol. That gut, and brain access, that could be its own conversation. And dopamine too. Yeah, and dopamine as well. Yeah. All the neurotransmitters are, actually the neuro-transmiters are in your gut. People that are suffering from any of the mental health issues should really look for probiotics that're specific to that. There's different strains that were specific for whatever it is, whether it's anxiety or depression or PTSD or whatever is that people are struggling with and treating.

They should look really for a probiotic that is high levels of that particular strain that'll make them feel better. So, so I read this study and they they took a bunch of they like 30 kids, 30 teenagers, and a measured their gut microbiome. And these were 30 American kids right on the standard American diet, high, ultra processed foods. They measured their microbiome and they measured like their mental health. Like, I don't know how they measure it, but they basically measured, like, you know, do they have depression?

Mental Health and the Gut-Brain Connection 20:00

How many of these kids struggle with mental disorders and different things, right? They take the same demographic of kids in a foreign country, same age, with their native food. So in this case, I think it was like some sort of Southeast, southeastern Asian food, and they had a better, more diverse microbiome and lower rates of mental health issues. So they're linking the American ultra-processed food diet to an increase in mental health issues in teenagers today. So over the last 25 years, we've had the tobacco companies purchase the major food companies.

So now they're developing foods that are highly addictive with all these chemicals and it's changing the gut microbiome in like people eating, you know, Doritos and Takis and all of these different foods, right? So they are getting these effects of mental health because of the chemicals in the foods we have in America. It's crazy. Remember when one of those potato chip companies years ago, they basically said, You can't just eat one. There is one potato chip that's made so deep. No one can eat just one.

Like, they're like, no, really, you can't, like we made it where you... No, we're not telling you, We're actually telling, You can have one chip because it's a, I don't know what that was, Olay, or I dunno what it was. I think it Was Pringles, wasn't it? Something like that. Pringle's isn't even... I can Have one Prinkle. It's not a problem. But so... One I eat it throughout the week. But it's sad though, because you've got an industry like tobacco that's now taking over the food industry. And because the GLP-1s are changing the microbiome in people now that are losing weight, and their leptin and ghrelin is balancing and they know when they're hungry and when their not hungry.

Now they are trying to bypass the GLP-1 receptors and there trying develop chemicals that can actually bypass those receptors so people will still want to eat the food. It's so crazy. Or they'll just buy all the pharmacies that are, you know, factories that make the GLPs. It's crazy. Dosage depends on what you're dealing with, whether it's gut health or digestive health, or after you took antibiotics, just general woman's health immunity. Your dosage is something that people have to look at on their own.

What are your needs? Yeah, if you need it for therapeutic, again, it is over 50 billion CFUs. If you just need daily use, 10 to 50 is fine. And then as far as supplementation, because sometimes people, like we said earlier, they can't get in their foods, and they don't like eating those types of foods. There are supplements where people can get the proper amount of probiotic and prebiotic in a capsule, taken one to three times a day, depending on what your dosage is. So we can list some of those supplements in our notes.

Yeah, I have two favorite brands that I love. We can do that so people kind of look and see what they want to use and all that stuff. So autoimmune skin, whether it's systemic auto immune or if it is something that is like a topical skin disorder, that's all because of leaky gut syndrome. The eczema and all those skin conditions can be really repaired with that. And even autism, I mean, has a huge leaky gut issue too. So getting on a really, really good spore-based probiotic for autistic kids is huge.

And I know with kids, they have it in powdered form, in liquid form. They have gummies. There's no reason not to take it. If a patient or a person says I don't like capsules or I They come in every format now, so there's really no excuse to not do it. You just got to do and I can't stress the consistency with supplementation or the way you eat. I know sometimes eating a certain way, people can deviate if they're on vacation, things happen, but you can always supplement. And that's the key thing, you just gotta do consistently.

and you know, I was at a functional medicine conference for autism, for kids with autism a few months back and all the vendors there, I don't know, 80% of vendors were all probiotic, prebiotic, gut health things. That's not a coincidence. No, it's totally linked. Cognitive function improves, sleep improves when your gut is working better for you.

Antibiotics, Kids, and Getting Started 25:00

We talked about that. But also, when sleep is bad, It affects your guts. Yeah, of course. So if you're not sleeping, that's going to affect. And that why a lot of times when people aren't sleeping much or not sleep well or deep or long enough, they're hungrier during the day because their microbiome is off. Yeah. It's off, yeah. We talked about antibiotics a little bit, but let's talk a bit about that because people will go on antibiotics and they won't know that the antibiotic is killing the good and the bad, right?

Killing the bag, which is what you want. Hopefully you're not taking antibiotics too much, but the antibiotic is non-discriminative. It's going to kill everything that's in front of it. And it's your job to then repair and rebuild that intestinal flora that was depleted after the antibiotics. So, and we were talking about it before we started. during antibiotic use is okay, just don't take it the same time. A few hours later and certainly continue it after you finish your regimen of your antibiotic, make sure you stay on track to rebuild that flora in your gut because you really just pretty much just depleted it with the antibiotic.

And, you know, we're not saying don't take antibiotics if you have to take them. Yeah, of course. You should. But a lot of times, even when my kids are sick, I don t even give them the antibiotic. I just dose them up on extra probiotics and they get over it. It's just, it's up to your discretion. Yeah, depends on what's going on and what your issue is and all that stuff. But don't forget the probiotic when you're taking an antibiotic. I think that's easily overlooked. And there's certain probiotics strains that are very good to take when on an anti-biotic too.

So just... Google it, look it up. It's all over the place. You can find that information out. So what else on probiotics? I think we've covered basically everything. If you're not on a probiotic, start. There's lots of bad ones, and there's a lots a good ones. Yeah. And there are two that I swear by, so if you want those, just comment probiotIC in the comments, then I'll send them to you. I do that. We'll put those notes in there. Any of our notes from today, we'll is just completely reflective of your health.

If you have a good gut, you'll have better health and you're more resistant to potential disease that you might be in front of or exposed to. The more resistive you are, the better. So if somebody who's listening or watching is not on a probiotic and they're like, where do I start? How do This is overwhelming. Do I go to Sprouts? Do i go? To do I got a Costco? I gotta GNC. How do i start? Like, what would be our advice to somebody that's listening or watching? And I hope somebody is listening. I help somebody who's watching.

What would it be somebody's our vice of them to like, start that journey of adding this to their? I mean, I would say if they're really serious about it and they want to stay consistent, they can always DM us and find out if you want a really good... Let's say they don't want talk to us at all. Okay, then I'd say go to... First of all, never get your vitamins from Costco. Ever. A lot of people do that. But go Sprouts or Whole Foods and get I prefer spore-based probiotics because I think they're most effective.

Um, so ask for spores-base probiotic. There's some good brands out there that are retail. You can purchase, but if you want a really high quality one, let's say you have a child that's symptomatic with some sort of autoimmune or mental disorders, or you do, and you wanna really good quality. One, um, there's two that I swear by, that can send the information about. And you can just order it on your own. So, It's easy to get. Just start it. Like we said earlier, there's various ways that you can ingest it, whether it's powder, gummy.

There's probably drops, those capsules, of course, just get on it that's a big one. It is a really important one for all ages. there is no bad time to start, right? Like anybody, you could do it as an infant all the way to your 110 years old. Oh yeah, even as babies, powder. You put it in the formula. I remember that powder and you put in Formula, so that's good. All right, cool. That's a wrap on that. Thanks for listening. Make sure you please follow us and comment and let us know if you have questions.

We'd love to answer those. The engagement's been pretty fun for us. And this ends kind of our series on the five non-negotiables. Yep. Yeah. and we really don't have anything else to talk about now. But I thought you said you were going to order that stool. I'm going eat somebody else's fecal matter. that brings a whole new connotation, eating somebody Yeah. That's disgusting. And we're going to fact check that. Justin and I are going fact-check that because I don't believe it. It's true. I think that's interesting.

But anyway, so we'll be back soon with some more content, some information. We love your engagement and we will talk soon. Thank you. The information provided in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. While we may be licensed healthcare professionals, this content should not be used to diagnose or treat any medical condition or to replace the advice of your personal healthcare provider. Always consult your doctor or a qualified health professional with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

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