This is Open Mind. In the social media world, there's a trending hashtag Hot Girls Have IBS, and it's caught the attention of over 28.2 million viewers on TikTok. The reason why is it reflects a shift in how women are addressing their digestive health issues. Using humor and community to bring light to what many have kept hidden for way too long. Now, by poking fun at their experiences with IBS and bloating and constipation, other gut troubles, women are challenging the stigma around these taboo bodily functions. Now, it's empowering to see these conversations happening openly, but it's really critical to remember these symptoms are not just everyday annoyances to laugh They're real concerns that need to be addressed seriously. And today, we're going to discuss why it's important to move beyond the normalization of this to understanding and treating the issues effectively. Hi, I'm Dr. Marc Hyman, and welcome to Health Hacks. We're diving deep into a topic that affects millions of people worldwide and yet often goes undiscussed in public: stomach issues. Whether it's bloating, constipation, diarrhea, or just an uncomfortable feeling of fullness that just won't go away, these symptoms can be more than just a nuisance.

They can seriously impact the quality of your life and a whole slew of chronic illnesses. Now, when we talk about stomach issues, we're really opening up a conversation about a range of conditions, from irritable bowel syndrome, to with constipation or diarrhea, to indigestion or what we call dyspepsia, or to what some people jokingly refer to as a food baby. I heard that first from one of patients, and I knew exactly what she was talking about. You know that swollen stomach you get after indulging in a big meal, that bloating, just feel full and your stomach pooches out? That ain't normal. Something's going on. We're going to talk about what it is and how to fix it. Now, behind these common experiences lies a complex interplay of dietary habits, hormone fluctuations, and even stress, and toxins, all of which affect our gut health. We're going to explore the root causes of these issues and why they tend to be more prevalent and more severe fear in women. We're going to look at the influence of everything from the menstrual cycle to stress on our digestive systems. We got some fascinating science to unpack about how our bodies react to different foods and stressors and what you can do to manage or even alleviate these symptoms.

I want you to be free of all of this nonsense. This is optional, given what we know now in the science. Let's jump in and get started. What do we mean by stomach issues? Well, there's a lot of them. The common term we call irritable bowel syndrome It describes a phenomena that, when I was in medical school, was often thought of as psychological. Anxious people, especially women, just got this condition, and it was just because it was all in their head. We had a horrible term for it that we used to jokingly call supratentorial, which in medical speak means in your brain, meaning in your head. And anytime we see the word syndrome in medicine, like irritable bowel syndrome, it means we don't have a freaking clue what causes it or what's really going on. It's a syndrome, which means a collection of symptoms that seem to go together, but we have no idea why or really what to do about it. And unfortunately, there's a lot of these, from premenstrual syndrome to chronic fatigue syndrome to fibromyalgia syndrome and so forth. Now, there are two main types of irritable bowel. We call IBSC and IBSD, or maybe a combo, or IBSCD.

Ibsc is constipation. C stands for constipation, D stands for diarrhea, and CD stands for constipation, diarrhea. Pretty fancy technology naming these things. Now, there's other types of stomach upset that you can get, like dyspepsia, which is indigestion, upset stomach, nausea. There's bloating, which is really common. That's feeling full right after you eat and getting this food baby, constipation, diarrhea, gas, heartburn, stomach pain, all this stuff. It's not normal. Our digestion should not make any noise. We should not know they're there until we get a gentle urge to go to the bathroom. We eliminate quickly, and that should be the end of that. Unfortunately, it's not like that for most people. Digestive issues are the number one reason people go see the doctor. Now, there's an extreme form of this, which is extreme bloating after eating. People use the term food baby. It's a term for this bloated, swollen stomach that results from eating, and it could be eating a small meal, a large meal, and it makes you look like you're pregnant. Now, I have lots of patients with this, and they all eat something, and they'll get this distension, discomfort, pain. It can be associated with constipation or diarrhea.

It really affects the quality of their life. I had a patient once who would have these attacks where she would get bloated and be distended. She would sometimes have to fast for a week and couldn't get this resolved. It turned out she finally had what we call small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. We're going to get deep into that. But basically, when I was in medical school, this wasn't even a thing. We didn't learn about it. It's only recently we've been talking about this phenomena of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or sebo, which is now a recognized medical condition, and it speaks to the root causes of IBS. Now, we have to get also to the root causes of sebo, which is basically the whole purpose of functional medicine, which is to get to the cause of the cause of the cause. But we'll get there. We treated this patient. She got better. We did a whole cocktail of things, but it's around improving motility. It's around killing all the bad bugs. It's about resetting the gut and so forth. But we'll get into exactly what we did and why we did it. Now, why is this phenomenon of irritable bowel syndrome more common in women than men?

Is it just men don't report it or is it just really true? Well, it actually is more common in women, about two times more common. The question is why? Well, it may be because, and we don't quite understand this yet, but it may be because there's hormonal fluctuations that impact the gut-brain microbial axis. So there's this gut-brain axis for sure, and your gut-brain talks to your brain-brain, and your brain-brain talks to your gut-brain, and the microbiome plays a huge role in regulating that cross-talking communications. What happens when this whole system gets dysregulated? In fact, there's actually a really great study that came out, an article in JAMA years and years ago, which turned the whole idea on its head, anxious people or neurotic people get irritable bowel. It actually flipped it on his head and said, You know what? It's the small bowel overgrowth and irritable bowel that causes an irritable brain. Because when your gut microbiome is bad, it makes you anxious and neurotic. A friend of mine calls him bitchy bugs. Whenever she gets bacterial overgrowth, she gets what she calls bitchy bugs. It makes her really mean and angry and not nice.

She knows it's not her that it's the bugs talking. We know this is true. Now, what are the effects of this whole dynamic system on gut function? Well, about 40% of women report that their irritable bowel symptoms are correlated with their menstrual cycle. That's from the world of gastrology. Women with irritable bowel often report PCOS or premenstrual syndrome or a more severe form, which is premenstrual DD or PMDD, depression disorder, and also heavy periods or painful periods. We call it dysmenorrheia. Now, sometimes symptoms were person during phases with low hormone levels like menstruation and the late luteal phase. So early on, you'll get low hormones, and late luteal phase, you'll get low estrogen. So estrogen and progesterone basically fluctuate all the time in a woman who's in the menstrual cycle period of her life. And this affects the motility of the gut, how your GI tract contracts, the transit time, how fast things move through, secretion of various digestive substances, and the sensitivity of the viscero to insults. In other words, the hypersensitivity of the nerves in the gut. Now, this visceral sensitivity and pain processing is affected by these changes in hormones. Now, estrogen receptors, including what we call estrogen receptor Alpha and beta, are widely distributed in the brain and also in the gut.

Their activation is associated with colonic motility, visceral pain, and irritable bowel. Androgens, or male hormones, which are higher in males than females, appear to protect against the development of chronic pain and exert analgesic effects. Now, gastric motility is another thing that these affect, which is how fast things move through, because if things aren't moving through, they'll back up, and then you get bacteria migrating into the small intestine, which you don't want. I'll explain exactly what is in a minute. But basically, you're just getting bacteria that should be in the lower intestine, migrating the upper intestine. When your motility is low or your basic processing and the speed at which things move through is slow, it leads to the backup of bacteria in the small intestine. Then you get these food babies and you get bloating and dissension because the bacteria, which shouldn't be there, start to ferment the food and create gas. Your body doesn't produce gas at all. It's the bacteria munching on the food that you're feeding it that are producing the gas. Now, low levels of ovulation are associated with a slower GI transit time and they're resulting in constipation. It also increases symptoms in the gut, like bloating and water retention.

When you're menstruating, you release prostaglandin tendons, which cause inflammation, and that also might contribute to bloating. High estrogen can also increase GI motility, which can lead to diarrhea. It works in different ways in different people. Higher progesterone levels in the luteal phase, that's the second half of your cycle, also slow the transit time of food through your gut and increase constipation. And lower levels during menstruation actually make you have more pain and bloating. Basically, hormones affect the motility and function of your gut and can actually lead to some of these GI symptoms. Also, psychological stress can be a factor. Women are far more susceptible to stress due to hormonal fluctuations, particularly in estrogen and progesterone, and that affects mood and stress, and we all know that, right? For example, estrogen interacts with serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, and GABA, all these neurotransmitters which regulate mood and stress. This makes women more sensitive to these stressors during certain phases of a hormonal cycle. Also, brain structure plays a role. Women have a larger limbic brain, which is the part of the brain involved in emotion and memory, which can make them more responsive to emotional stimuli and stress.

And women who have this higher levels of stress response in the brain can lead to higher levels of cortisol, and that has various effects on the body, including increased anxiety, disrupted sleep, altered immune and gut microbiome function. Now, cortisol helps the body manage stress by increasing blood sugar and enhancing cognitive function while suppressing non-essential functions like digestion and immune response. So it prioritizes what's important, like saving your life. So for example, if you're being chased by a tiger, you don't want to be digesting your food. You want your blood sugar go up, your blood pressure go up, you want your brain to work better, but you do not want to be digesting your food. All your energy should be going to running as fast as you can or fighting to save your life. Now, what happens when you have IBS? We often see a decrease in the parasympathetic activity of your nervous system. This is the relaxation response, and an increase in the sympathetic nervous system activity, and that's the stress response in patients with IBS. Now, estrogen also can influence cortinal levels by increasing the sensitivity of cortisol receptors. So basically, whatever cortisol receptors you have, they work better, and that leads to a more profound reactive stress response.

Basically, it makes your sensitivity to stress higher. That's why women are more likely to experience stress-related conditions like irritable bowel, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome. Now, our gut is our second brain. There's more neurons in our gut than our spinal cord. The bi-directional relationship between irritable bowel and inflammatory bowel and anxiety, depression, stress is really clear. They make each other worse. Gut bacteria produce hormones and neurotransmitters like serotonin, gaban, dopamine. If we don't have the right gut bacteria, we can't produce these neurotransmitters that help regulate our nervous system and immune system. Now, social and cultural aspects are also important in regulating the whole phenomenon of IBS. Diet culture, the desire for thinness, social media all do bad things to women, particularly. This whole comparison culture, comparing yourself to others, appearance, it just fuels body image dissatisfaction, extreme dieting, restricting behaviors, which is a disaster. There's an article in PLAS Global Public Health, a medical journal that says it's called the Social Media Diet, a scoping review to investigate the association between social media, body image, and eating disorders amongst young people. We know this is true. This is a book by Jonathan Haight. We're going to have him on the podcast, Doctors Pharmacy, talking about these issues.

He calls it The Anxious Generation. A little bit terrifying. Women are far more affected than men. Girls are often focused on photos of themselves. They basically are supporting this whole fin-fit ideal of their bodies. They compare themselves to others. They have higher levels of disorder eating, higher levels of dieting, emotional eating. It's not just women. Boys also favorite a muscular ideal. They prioritize fitness and the functionality of our weight loss. There's a significant association between social media use and algorithms that fuel disordered eating behaviors like binging, purging, laxative use, extreme dieting, and orthorexia, which is a big problem. All that sets the stage. What then causes irritable bowel and stomach issues? Well, it's different for everyone, and we'll go Two of the reasons. Poor diet and lifestyle are at the top of the list. It's the biggest driver. A population-based prospective cohort study published in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that an unfavorable lifestyle, looking at modifiable lifestyle factors like weight and BMI, smoking status, diet, physical activity, sleep, and alcohol consumption, were associated with this 56% higher risk for irritable bowel compared to a favorable lifestyle versus a 12% high risk among those who were at higher genetic risk compared those at a low genetic risk.

Basically, lifestyle had a greater impact on IBS than genetics. Maybe some of them have families with irritable bowel, and there may be some genetics there, but combined genetics and lifestyle has a cumulative effect. Also, people are under eating real food. They're under eating nutrient dense wholefoods with the right amount of protein, good fats, and all the amino acids they need to function. They're over eating ultra-processed foods, even healthy, plant-based vegan plant meats. I call it a plant-based meat because it's made in a plant, not grown in a plant. And gluten-free foods, which are often junk food, they eat ultra-processed foods that are high in refined sugars and carbs and refined oils, low-quality protein, like soy protein isolates and processed stuff. In fact, a large-scale prospective cohort study reported that compared to the lowest consumption of ultra-processed food, the highest consumption of ultra-processed food had a significantly higher risk for irritable bowel. In fact, an 8% higher risk of irritable bowel is associated with every 10% increment in ultra-processed food. We eat about 60% of our calories as ultra-processed food. That's a 48% increase in irritable bowel given the diet we eat. Now, together, the under eating of the good stuff and the over eating of the bad stuff increases the risk of nutrient deficiencies like B12, iron, zinc, omega-3s.

And that actually affects how our gut functions and heals. Also, our diets are often causing disturbances in our gut, and that can affect low stomach acid. It can even be from taking acid-blocking drugs. There's also another factor that affects irritable bowel, and I personally had this for sure, which was the effect of toxins on the gut. And you need a lot of enzymes and various things to make your gut work properly. And toxins basically bind to enzymes, and they can cause significant disruption in your gut function. So for example, there's a whole bunch of endocrine disrupting chemicals like BPA or bisphenol A, phthalates, pesticides, and chemicals and plastics, all of which affect the gut. In fact, a study found that fecal microplastic concentrations in inflammatory bowel disease, which is a worst form of IBS, was nearly 50% higher than in healthy people. And microplastics are pro-inflammatory, we know that. And there's a positive correlation between higher levels of the concentrations of these microplastics and inflammatory bowel disease. What else can cause disruption of the gut? Food sensitivities, food allergens, environmental allergens, all can be a factor. One of the most common food sensitivities, gluten, dairy, eggs, corn, soy, often grains and beans.

Alcohol is not a sensitivity so much as it's just a gut toxin. What these do is they tend to lead to the overgrowth of bad gut bacteria we call dysbiosis. And dysbiosis is basically the phenomena of the imbalance of bugs in your gut that creates more bad bugs and less good bugs. And what does that do? Well, that leads to a leaky gut and inflammation in the body. It can lead to motility issues. It can lead to overgrowth of bacteria, the bad bugs in the wrong spot. It can lead to what we call CFO, or small intestinal fungal overgrowth, what some people refer to as Candida, but it can be many species of fungus. And a lot of these symptoms overlap with IBS, right? Bloating, gas, cramping, diarrhea, constipation. So let's get into a more detailed conversation about sebo, because this is really at the root of so many people. Now, whether you're IBSD or C, constipation or diarrhea, there may be different bugs involved. And there's a dump of different gas as we measure, because what we're seeing is when you have overgrowth of bacteria, they ferment the food you're eating, particularly starches and sugars and fermentable carbohydrates, and that causes the production of gasses.

And those gasses are what causes distension and the food baby. The first thing that goes wrong is what we call dysbiosis. We talked about that briefly, but there's a lot of reasons for that. It's our poor ultra-process diet, it's our lack of fiber, it's too much starch and sugar, alcohol, artificial sweeteners, all kinds of stuff. And from drugs, too. Antibiotics, steroids, the birth control pill, Acid blockers, which are so common, like Prelosec or Previsit, all these can imbalance the gut flora. Psychological stress, high carb diet, alcohol, environmental toxins, all these things cause this problem of dysbiosis, and they also can affect the motility of the gut. There's a lot of things that cause motility issues. It can be diabetes, it can be GLP-1 agonist, by the way, and I worry about how they're affecting people's GI tract. Drugs like Ozempic. We're seeing even things like small bowel overgrowth, and Also, we're seeing a risk of bowel obstruction because of the way in which it affects the gut. I'm a little worried about that, but they can be a helpful class of drugs. I just think they're overused. But when you have important mortality from stress or from different inflammatory bowel disease, it can again cause a backup and growth of bacteria in the wrong spot.

Basically, you've got like 10, 12 feet of large intestine and about 22 feet of small intestine. Obviously, the small intestine should be mostly sterile, but When the bacteria migrate up to the top of it and then the food ends up hitting it first, that's when you get this food baby stuff. Now, stress also will have an effect on your bacteria. They actually are listening to your thoughts, right? Your bacteria listening there. When you have stress, also it increases permeability of the gut, it causes leaky gut, it affects motility, slows it down, and affects immune system function. So it's quite common. Managing health insurance is such a hassle. It's confusing, expensive, and nothing is more frustrating than when your claim gets denied. But that's where crowd health comes in. It's not health insurance. It's a smarter way to handle health care expenses. Instead of sending your money to big insurance companies to profit off you, you can join a community that's got your back. Crowd health has redefined health coverage as we know it. They simplify everything and offer a supportive community-based approach. At just $175 a a month for an individual and $575 for a family of four more, you get access to telemedicine visits, discount of prescriptions, and more without the hassle of network restrictions.

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The option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. So rediscover possibility with Betterhelp. Visit betterhelp. Com/healthhacks to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelph elp. Com/healthhacks. One of the things that happens is a low stomach acid. A low stomach acid is not that common, but it can be in degrees. The more severe form is aclarhydria, which happens when you get older and you get atrophy of your stomach, or if you have B12 deficiency and so forth, that can really affect this. But there's a lot of reasons for it. But a lot of the reason is because we take these asset-blocking drugs. That leads to low stomach acid, and that leads to a change in the PH, and that leads to the PH of the small intestine changing, and the overgrowth of fungus and bacteria that shouldn't be there because of the change in climate. But aging itself leads to this. Chronic stress leads to low stomach acid. Certain intestinal infections like HPLOR, autoimmune diseases like hypothyroidism, certain medications, obviously, if you're blocking stomach acid with acid blockers or PPIs, anti-acids, certain nutrient deficiencies which are important for the production of gastric acid, like Zinc and B vitamins.

If you're low in those, that can cause low stomach acid. Also, poor diet will cause sebo, right? High intake of processed foods, sugar, unhealthy fats also has a negative impact on sebo and also stomach acid. Also, if you're not eating properly, irregular meal times, eating too quickly, over eating, you'll tend to potentially get sebo. This allows bacteria to colonize the upper intestine, which is supposed to have low levels of bacteria. All right, so this is what it is. Basically, bad bugs growing in the wrong spot, fermenting the food you're eating, causing you to have a food baby and be miserable and have all sorts of other consequences on your mood, your energy, your cognitive function. It's not just your stomach that's being affected here. Now, how do you diagnose it? Well, we use a breath test. There's a number of different kinds of breath tests. There's Lactulose, there's glucose, and another test called Trio Smart test. But essentially, we're looking for three gasses that are produced after we give you a digestible sugar, like Lactulose or glucose. What these do is they actually help you to identify whether or not you're producing extra forms of these gasses because the small intestinal bacteria.

The Trio Smart test looks at for three different gasses, developed by Marc Femintal and others at UCLA. Looks for methane, which is commonly associated with constipation, hydrogen, more likely to have diarrhea, and hydrogen sulfide, which is often not tested for, but it can be important to find, particularly in tough cases of sebo. I particularly use the Trio Smart test. You can learn about it online. Your doctor can order it, but it's a really important test. There are stool tests that help, and that'll help you identify what's going on in the gut. Maybe it helps you look at the overall health of the microbiome, six underlying issues. It can help you identify yeast overgrowth, lack of short-chain fatty acids, lack of important bacteria like acromansia, low growth of bacteria. All that is clues that things are going on. Also use organic acid testing, a urine test, because a lot of the metabolites from overgrowth of fungus or bacteria will show up in the urine and you can measure these, and it's another clue. There are certain blood tests that are important to look for nutrient deficiencies that can affect sebo or your body, like B12 or iron, that maybe also include a malabsorption.

What's a traditional approach? Well, there's some pretty good approaches in traditional medicine, but they stop short. They give you an antibiotic to clear the bacteria. That's an advance from what we used to do when I was in training, but it doesn't really address the full spectrum of what's going on in the gut. What's good comprehensive functional medicine approach to treating irritable bowel and also the related GI stomach issues. Well, we have a methodology. It's basically a system of how we approach people with gut issues. It's called the 5R program. The first is to remove, remove the bad stuff, remove foods that might be bothering you, bacteria, parasites, yeast, get rid of the bad stuff. The second is replace, replace what's missing, probiotics, prebiotics, enzymes, and so forth. The third is to re-inoculate, which is to use probiotics. The fourth is to repair. That means repair the gut lining with the right nutrients that heal the leaky gut and repair your gut lining. The fifth is to restore, which means to regulate your nervous system and stress. Let's go through the 5-R program in more detail. The first R is to remove. Remove common triggers for problems with the gut.

These are commonly known as food sensitivities, not true allergies, or just things that your body shouldn't be eating that much of. Bluten, dairy, corn, soy, sometimes eggs for people, certainly ultra-processed foods, certainly refined carbs and sugars, and alcohol. Now, a landmark paper published in the prestigious British Medical Journal Gut found that limiting foods identified through the delayed food allergy test, which is not typically well accepted by traditional medicine. It measures IgG antibodies, not true food allergy, but food sensitivity. When they were limiting those foods, they dramatically improve their IBS symptoms. The next thing we want to get rid of are the bad bugs, right? And that means identifying what they are through testing. Maybe it's a breath test, maybe it's stool testing, urine testing. But it involves getting rid of overgrowth of bacteria, overgrowth of fungus, overgrowth of parasites, through sometimes medications or herbal therapies. Now, the typical medications used are antibiotics. Antibiotics. Rufaximen is the most common one now used. This is a non-absorbed antibiotic approved for irritable bowel. A randomized trial published in the Amal of Internal Medicine showed that using Rifaximen for 10 days resulted in dramatic improvement in bloating and overall symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome by clearing out the overgrowth of bad bacteria.

But sometimes you need to use combinations. For example, if you have methane, sebo, you might need neomycin. Sometimes there's resistance, you need to use Bactrim or other antibiotics. But it's important to work carefully with your doctor on this. Also, you might need an antifungal to get rid of the bad bugs like flucan, niestatin or spornox. You might need an anti-parasitic if you find you have a parasite like a linea or flagile. Then there's some herbal therapies that can be really helpful. There's a product It's called a Trantil, or Trantil, which is a specific herbal formula that's designed for methane recebo. If you have high methane on your test and to have constipation. Certain antibiotics like neomycin can be also important for methane cebo. There are certain herbs that I like to use, like Candebac, then AR and BR, which are herbal therapies for bacterial and use overgrowth, can be great. Sometimes I use a combination of antibiotics followed by herbs for a while, and I will treat people with an antibiotic regimen and then follow it up with herbal antimicrobials, it includes oregano, berberine, wormwood, yero, thyme, ginger, licorice, and other things. That's the first R.

Also, we look at toxins. That's the other thing is to remove toxins. We have heavy metals, If you have pesticides, chemicals, all those need to be reduced or removed. Personally, I had three or CBO from mercury poisoning because it poisoned all my digestive function and enzymes, and it didn't work, and I had to fix that. Now, the next R is to replace. Digestive enzymes and hydrochloric acid, and I use digestive enzymes. There's different kinds like Digestive enzyme ultra from pure encapsulations. There's Digest Gold. There's a lot of other ones. There's Spectraxalm 9x, which is an animal-based enzyme for metagenics. By the way, all these supplements I mentioned, you can find. They're usually through professionals, but I've curated some of the best in class that I've used for my patients that are available through me. You can just go to drheimen. Com and go to the supplement store there, and you'll be able to find it. Beta-anitrochloride, which is counterintuitive. If you think you have digestive issues, we're taking all these acid blockers, but this is actually giving you stomach acid, and it can help digestive food and actually help reduce sebo. Then we re-inoculate, which is really important.

That involves giving you the right probiotics. It's just really important. That is good bacteria. It can be Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium. Sometimes we use Sacromyces, which is yeast against yeast that helps with the yeast overgrowth. We use a whole different combination of probiotics. We also use polyphenols and prebiotics to actually help fertilize the good bugs. We now know that polyphenols, the colorful compounds in plant foods, are really important for helping to improve the growth of the good bacteria. Lastly, the next R is to repair. That means repairing the gut lining, using food as medicine, eating whole, minimally processed foods, lots of good protein, protein because protein is needed for gut lining repair. Pasta-raised eggs, grass-fed, organic, non-genetically modified sources of food, lots of low mercury fish like salmon, mackrel, herring, sardines. I like seatopia. Fish. It's got a great source of clean fish sometimes that are regenerally farmed. Be careful of farmed fish. But there's a lot of other protein options, grass-fed beef, wild game, Buffalo elk, lamb, venison, all are great. Poultry, if it's pasture-raised, turkey chicken, that's really good. You also need You've got healing nutrients like omega-3s and vitamin A. You can get ghee, which has butyric acid, which also contains a gut healing compound.

Bone broth is really great. It's rich in aglutamine, which can help provide you feeling full, but also it can help provide added minerals and collagen support that helps your leaky gut. Also, there's certain supplements that are important, like omega-3s. I like omega-3 rejuvenate from Big Boat Health. You can take evening primosol, magnesium, certain vitamins like D and A are important. Zinc, a multivitamin, all help heal the gut. These are just things that we use to help heal the gut. Now, after you've done this SIBO treatment, you don't want to be eating the diet that's going to cause you to reintroduce foods that are going to cause, again, the overgrowth. You got to be careful. You also want to learn how to regulate your nervous system because that also is important because both stress works to make it worse, but when you're having your bowel, it makes your stress worse. It's a a vicious cycle. Meditation, breathwork, yoga, whatever it is to help restore your nervous system. Also, exercise is great. Exercise that's done regularly, this is from randomized control trials, actually helps reduce IBS. Even a 30-minute walk can help. Now, let's talk about diet.

There's a whole diet that's being used. It's called a low FODMAP diet, low in fermentable starches and sugars, essentially. You're not giving the bacteria something to chomp on and then produce gas and make you miserable. This is crazy. One in seven people in the entire world is affected by symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, and many have one or more foods that are known to trigger symptoms like gas, bloating, or diarrhea. Now, carbs and fiber are the most common because they can be fermented. This diet is called the low FODMAP diet, and it was developed in Australia, which was extensively researched with irritable bowel, and it's basically considered a low carbohydrate diet. It can be super effective for treating IBS. Basically, if you eat protein vegetables, you'll be fine, except certain vegetables are not great. We'll talk about that. Now, Many of those Erroba Val suffer symptoms improved on this low Fadmap diet. Clinical research has shown that low Fadmap diet has improved the symptoms in 70% of IBS patients. You both want to do the 5R program, and part of the first R is to remove, and it means removing some of these fermentable starches.

Real-world studies continue to show that this works in improving abdominal pain, quality of life. What does actually FODMAP stand for? It stands for fermentable olisaccharides, which are fructans and galactom oligosaccharides, basically oligosaccharides, which means single sugars, disaccharides, like lactose, monosaccharides, like fructose. These are all types of sugars that are gut bacteria feed on, and polyols, which are sugar alcohol, which is in all the health foods that have artificial sweeteners or sugar alcohols to make them sweet, like sorbitol, xylitol, malitol, isomaltol, maltol, and these are terrible. When I had SIBO, I accidentally got, well, not accidentally, on purpose, got a chocolate bar that was given to me by a patient. It's a no sugar chocolate bar. You should love it. I'm like, great. I was, I don't know, at work and I was a little tired, stressed. I ate it, the whole thing, and it was full maltetal, and I was in the bathroom, and I was miserable. It's really bad, so you have to be careful. How do FABMEPS foods cause IBS? Well, these carbohydrates and sugars are not readily absorbed in the gut. Basically, they path through the small intestines, and they attract water, and they cause bloating and motility changes that can result in diarrhea or constipation.

But once they reach the large intestine, the gut bacteria ferment them, and they produce lots of gasses like hydrogen, methane, carbon dioxide. The accumulation of these gasses leads to gas bloating dissension. What are the foods that have the highest and the lowest amounts of FODMAPs? What are other things that have FODMAPs, like drinks? Let's just go through the beverages. Apple juice, mango juice, pear juice, high fructose corn syrup, sodas, certain alcohol drinks like beer, wine. All that will make you worse. Processed foods, I should say no more, but you know those you should be eating anyway. But cereals with high fructose corn syrup, snack foods with high glucose corn syrup, protein bars, diet foods, often they'll contain inulin or high FODMAP ingredients. What are the steps to try a low Fadmap diet? Well, all these modern and high Fadmap foods should be eliminated for 4-6 weeks on the low Fadmap food plan. For the next 4-6 weeks, you want to basically do that. Why does a low Fadmap diet eliminate healthy foods? It seems like you shouldn't be eliminating healthy, but sometimes it says to, Aspherus, right? But that actually has a lot of fermentable starches in it.

You basically do this temporarily until your symptoms get better. Now, it's careful if you have an eating disorder or whatever, you want to be aware of working with someone who can help you do this right. But still, you might need to fix your gut, and that can be a factor even in eating disorders. One Fadmab group is introduced at a time, so you to go slowly to monitor your symptoms. One food at time, you start small and you build up your tolerance. Now, some people can only tolerate food as a specific quantity, so maybe they have a little bit. They'll be fine. If they have a little more, they're going to be in trouble. But some people need to avoid specific foods or FODMAP groups indefinitely. There's an app actually that the FODMAP group in Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, put together, and it's for the public, and it provides a searchable database of foods low and high in FODMAPs. It has recipes, recommended food products, and on their website for more information, you go to monashfodmap. Com. It's M-O-N-A-S-H-F-O-D-M-A-P. Com. Now, research shows that tryptophan, which is the precursor to serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter that helps gut motility, can improve constipation in IBSC because it helps increase intestinal transit time, intestinal motility, which means moving things through, and gastric emptying similar to fiber.

So that's good. If you have high In terms of tryptophan, though, it could make IBSD worse, meaning your diarrhea predominant. You want to be careful. If you're doing this, I encourage you to work with a practitioner. It's pretty restrictive. I don't think everybody needs to be on this, actually. I think there's ways of resetting the gut use to the Fivor program and helping people eat more normally. But you want to work with an experienced nutritionist or functional medicine practitioner who can help you identify what's going on, what you should be doing. The goal here is to improve digestion, not have a long-term restrictive diet. The good news is we now understand a lot more about irritable bowel than we did. We understand what is driving this food baby. It's called Ceebo or Ceefo. We understand how to treat it in the right way with diet changes, lifestyle changes, the right medication sometimes, the gut repair program. Often, traditional doctors might give you the antibiotic, but they won't treat your yeast or fungal issues. They won't put you on a full 5R program to reset you. They won't make a lot of dietary suggestions. You'll get recurrence.

It It can be a problem, you can get recurrence if you don't do it properly. As we wrap up today's episode, it's clear that the playful hashtag Hot Girls Have IBS is more than just a trend. It's a conversation starting about real health issues that face a lot of people every day. It's great that social media is helping destigmatize discussions around women's health, particularly digestive issues. We've learned today these symptoms are signs that should not be ignored. They're often rooted in complex interactions between our diet, our hormones, our lifestyle. But thanks to Do extensive research and discussions that we covered today, hopefully we're all better equipped to understand the underlying causes of these common stomach issues. Remember, it's not enough just to normalize these conditions. They're not normal. We've got to actively seek understanding of what to do and get the right treatment. Whether you're a woman dealing with these symptoms or know somebody who is, I encourage you to explore functional medicine approaches that we discussed and consult with your health care professional who can tailor specific treatments to your specific needs. So let's take control of our health and work not just toward feeling okay, but to feeling great.

Thanks for joining me today, and I look forward to bringing you more empowering health discussions on next Tuesday's episode of Health Hacks.