Episode Details

These days, when people ask me the #1 book I recommend for all things gut, it is, hands down "Healthy Gut, Healthy You" by Dr. Michael Ruscio. This book takes a deep dive into topics such as:

• How the gut works and its role in your body,
• Practical diet and lifestyle advice to support your gut health,
• Simple and actionable tools to repair your gut, and
• An innovative, user-friendly plan to heal, support, and revitalize your gut.

This is Dr. Ruscio's third appearance on the podcast.

The first one, titled Why Healthy People Get Broken Guts, And What You Can Do About It talked about why apparently healthy people, especially athletes and exercise enthusiasts, get broken guts, and what they can do about it.

Then, the second podcast, titled Good Carbs, Bad Carbs, High Carbs, Low Carbs & More: Clearing Up Carbohydrate Confusion, was an in-depth discussion on carbs and their effect on your body.

What will his third appearance on the podcast reveal???

Quite a bit, as you will hear.

Michael Ruscio is a doctor, clinical researcher and best-selling author whose practical ideas on healing chronic illness have made him an influential voice in functional and alternative medicine. His work has been published in peer-reviewed medical journals and he speaks at integrative medical conferences across the globe. Dr. Ruscio also runs an influential website and podcast at DrRuscio.com, as well as his clinical practice located in northern California.

• Dr. Ruscio's interest in this goes back 5 years.
• Focused on improving the health of bacteria.
• Observations don't always translate into practical action inside a clinic.
• You differentiate the discrepancies when you separate the large and small intestine.
  • What's going on in the large intestine isn't indicative of the small.
  • A lot of "gut advice" is large intestine-centric.
  • Small intestine comprises 56% of gut activity.
    • Most prone to leaky gut
    • Most immuno active
    • Where 90% of calories are absorbed
• Bacterial overgrowth is either an overgrowth of or the wrong type of bacteria in the small intestine
  • Not a parasite
  • Native to your system; either in the wrong place or too much of it.

• Many people who think they have a thyroid condition actually do not.
• 60% of people who were rechecked were found not to be hypothyroid.
• Symptoms of hypothyroidism can be mistaken for other problems in the GI tract.
• Study done on people with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome)
  • Higher incidence of fatigue, depression and anxiety found
  • They were not hypothyroid
• Another study looking at 1800 patients
  • Looking for drug use, medication use, prior intestinal surgery; expected these to increase risk of SIBO
  • Two most correlated conditions: being hypothyroid and being on thyroid medication.
  • 290 were taken off medication and retested; 60% were not hypothyroid
  • Nei