Category Archives: Questions & Answers

Questions & Answers

The Best Dietary Practices For Gut And Overall Health

The following are some healthy-gut tips that I have shared with my clients over the years.

1. Don’t follow a diet like the paleo, keto, or low-carb diet: I don’t generally recommend that you follow any particular kind of diet. You may look at my Candida Crusher book and think to yourself, “But, hang on a minute, he recommends the MEVY diet.” The MEVY diet refers to meat, eggs, vegetables, and yogurt. However, I never say that people should rigidly stick to the MEVY diet. I encourage modifying the diet to suit your purposes. I’m not the food police.

2. Use smaller plates: If you want to be lean and mean, try and eat smaller servings. Using a smaller plate can help you to adjust psychologically to eating less. And remember that the best exercise you can do is to push your plate away.

3. Focus on the quality of your food, not the quantity: Always be fussy about the quality of the food you’re eating. Even if the best option isn’t brilliant, you can still make the best food choices for the circumstances. Watch out for buffets because it’s easy to overeat, and the hygiene may be suspect. Quality is more and more important as you get older. 20-year-olds can get away with eating a quantity that wouldn’t be a right for a 60-year old.

4. Snack on yogurt: Yogurt can help build up the beneficial bacteria in your gut. It reduces inflammation and inhibits bacteria and yeast. Eating small amounts of yogurt has been shown to boost the immune system as well. Eat sour, Greek yogurt, perhaps with a few berries and some Manuka honey. Don’t opt for yogurt full of artificial sweeteners.

5. Add sprouts to your diet. Sprouts are a fantastic food full of enzymes that improve digestive function while cleaning up the stomach and small intestine. I try and eat sprouts every single day

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6. Try and match up a regular behavior with a healthy habit. For example, whenever my father went out for a drive, he would have an apple. You could try the same thing or design your own healthy association. It could mean having a drink of fresh, filtered water every time you go to the kitchen. Or maybe it would mean always throwing a piece of fruit into your bag when you’re out running errands.

7. Be picky when you go out for food. Don’t sit there and suffer in silence but there is no reason you can’t politely decline to eat food that is going to make your health suffer. Many people have told me that they don’t want to put someone out or embarrass, but I think it’s important to speak up in your own best interest.

8. Don’t eat well for five or six days a week and then have a massive “cheat day” full of fried chicken and soda pop. That’s not a great idea. If you are going to “cheat,” have something small. Small amounts of less-than-healthy food are acceptable. But remember the 80/20 rule, even 90/10 rule, 80 to 90% of what you eat should be very good. A small percentage can be not so good.

9. Not every sensation is hunger. If you feel that stomach growling sensation is most likely the motor reflex that occurs when your body is cleaning out the digestive tract, it’s not actually that your body needs food. It’s good for your gut not to be always peppered with food. It’s the key to keeping your weight down is by curbing and controlling the appetite.

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Questions & Answers

Diet, Cognition, And Mood: What’s The Connection?

Can what you eat make a difference to your thinking or your mood?

I think 2013 was when scientists started to look at the impact of the microbiome on cognition and mood. There are now many studies demonstrating that what you eat can highly influence how you think and feel.

Several parts of the brain are impacted by nutrition. The prefrontal cortex, the cortex, the amygdala, the hippocampus, and other areas of the brain will be affected. I’ve noticed this in patients for many years in my clinic.

I consider gut bacteria to make the difference between feeling good and feeling bad emotionally. I’ve noticed this in the clinic innumerable times. I’ve monitored patients using stool tests and documented a direct connection between the level of dysbiosis, yeast overgrowth, bacteria overgrowth, parasite infections, and how the patient feels.

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As the diet and gut improved and harmful microorganisms were reduced, my patients’ moods would pick up noticeably. Their jobs and relationships improved. Their cognitive symptoms disappeared.
I’ve concluded the nature of our gut flora is directly linked to the functioning of our brain. The quality of food that we eat has a direct impact on the microbial population in our GI tract. As a result, our diet can either leave us feeling terrible or leave us feeling sharp and energized.

Every time you eat something, remember the saying, “People dig their own graves with their teeth.” I read some alarming reports from the United States that most Americans eat less than a cup of fruit per day and less than two cups of vegetables per day. A diet like that will increase dysbiosis and gut imbalance, leading to cognitive dysfunction and mood disorders.

Is it any wonder that the world’s becoming a more depressing, anxious place to live?

Remember, the choice is yours. You decide what you put in your mouth every day. It’s your call. Decide how you want to feel and eat accordingly.

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Questions & Answers

Start Young: Childhood Habits Make A Difference To Your Gut Flora

I read a fascinating study out of Montreal that followed 22 children over eight years. The study looked at the impact of childhood habits on gut flora.

This study was conducted at the Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte-Justine, in Montreal, Quebec. The 22 children had multiple stool samples done over the eight years. What the researchers found was that children who were fit, sleeping well, and who had a generally healthy lifestyle, tended to have a much more diverse microbiome when they got older.

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In other words, childhood habits have a significant impact on the biodiversity of the microbiome. If you extrapolate those findings to adulthood, we can expect better mental, physical, and emotional health in those with a healthy lifestyle during childhood.

Encouraging your child to be fit, active, eat healthy foods, and put down the Xbox once in a while can make a big difference to their health in the long run.

Remember that the work I do is evidence-based. It’s not hocus pocus sort of fairy dust. It’s science-based information I like to present to people here because that’s what it’s all about. It combines the best of what science offers and the best of what nature offers. I like that sweet spot right in the middle there. I’ve always worked on that premise.

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Questions & Answers

The Connection Between Skin Health And Gut Health

I’ve always believe that if you get the gut in order, you’re going to get a person’s skin in better shape. Now finally, science is validating this.

A very interesting study was it was conducted by the Louis Pasteur Institute in Paris and the Bernard Institute in Leon. The researchers took a cohort of mice and genetically modified their DNA, so they no longer had the MAVS gene. The MAVS gene codes for an antiviral protein.

The mice without the MAVS gene experienced an alteration to their microbiota as the MAV antiviral protein no longer protected them. As a result, their skin was more vulnerable, and they developed eczema.

In this study, removing the MAV gene was also associated with a leaky gut. As the microbiota changed and viruses better able to attack, the small intestine became much more permeable. Remember, that a leaky gut allows food proteins to leak through the intestinal wall and affect the spleen and the lymph.

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Next, the researchers took the gut flora from the mice lacking MAV and put it into the normal mice. The normal mice went on to develop severe eczema and significant allergies.

The authors of the study concluded that when the gut flora is disturbed, reactions can occur throughout the body – not just in the gut. Hence, the emergence of eczema in these mice.

Another study was conducted at Otago University in New Zealand. In this case, the researchers were focused on infants. When infants received probiotics, their eczema cleared up much more rapidly than when any other treatment was used.

I’m well known in my industry for successfully treating challenging skin conditions. I’ve always started from the premise that you need to alter the diet, feed the beneficial bacteria, and get the gut in excellent health to conquer skin problems. I’ve been talking about this for 20 years.
Unfortunately, many people with eczema end up being prescribed steroid creams or pills. I think the focus should be on getting the diet in line with the needs of the beneficial bacteria in the gut. Then, the body’s health will take care of itself.

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Questions & Answers

What You Need To Know About The Mediterranean Diet

It’s worth knowing about the Mediterranean diet.

When I talk about the Mediterranean diet, I’m referring to a diet rife with olive oil, almonds, pistachios, walnuts, beans, and other legumes, fruits, olives, lots of fish, small amounts of dairy, and even smaller amounts of meat. The Mediterranean diet isn’t low fat – it includes olive oil and fatty fish.

Dr. Ailsa Welch is a nutrition expert from Norwich Medical University. She conducted a study that spanned 17 years and included 23,232 men and women, ages 40 to 77. Dr. Welch and her team found that eating a Mediterranean diet significantly reduced the risk of stroke. Women did the best with a 17% protective effect versus a 6% protective effect for men. The 17% reduction in stroke for women applied whether the woman was taking hormone replacement therapy or not.

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The Mediterranean diet includes foods like sardines, figs, and olives. I believe that people in the Mediterranean also tend to be more relaxed, more social, and eat much slower than the typical American. There is also more daily physical activity in the Mediterranean populations.

I read another intriguing study that said that big food companies are taking over where “big” tobacco left off. Most of us are aware that tobacco was promoted to the masses in the ‘50s and ‘60s – not unlike how fast food is promoted today.

The older generation remembers a time when they made their own chicken dishes and pizza. The younger generation is growing up with Kentucky Fried Chicken and Domino’s Pizza instead.

I have personally been following the Mediterranean diet for years. I use lots of olive oil, fish (including salmon, which isn’t really Mediterranean but still very healthy), avocados, nuts, seeds, and legumes. In my opinion, a low meat, high fish diet with lots of vegetables and fresh fruit is one of the best diets to follow.

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