Category Archives: Questions & Answers

Questions & Answers

Good And Bad Foods For Digestive Enzyme Deficiency

If your goal is to have fantastic levels of digestive enzymes, the foods you should be avoiding are pretty obvious. You don’t need to have gone to Harvard and studied nutrition for decades to figure it out. Junk food needs to stay off of your plate. That includes pizza, fried chicken, fast food, soda, and sugary foods. These are the food that devitalize a body. Same thing for meals out of a can, or boxes that you’re supposed to pop into the microwave for two minutes.

I’ve often said to my patients, “If you eat like crap, you’re going to end up feeling and looking like crap.” Perhaps that’s blunt, but it’s true.

When you are trying to create optimal gut health, avoid making snap decisions about what you’re going to eat. Think carefully and plan ahead when it comes to preparing your meals. Including preparation and cooking, you should be able to make a nutritious meal in twenty to thirty minutes. When cooking your meals, remember that if you heat food to over 49 degrees centigrade, the enzymes in the food are destroyed. That means your body must provide a larger volume of enzymes to digest the food.

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When you eat fresh, natural foods like sprouts, raw vegetables, leafy greens, and plenty of fruit, the foods themselves provide a good dose of enzymes. Some people are going to read this and say that I’m crazy because I recommend eating fruit. They’ll claim that Candida will run amok if you eat fruit. But that’s not true. If you eat tree-ripened fruit and your digestive system is in excellent condition, you’ll be absolutely fine.

On the other hand, if you’re drinking a few cans of pop and eating three or four donuts a day, snacking on a green apple isn’t going to save your gut. You can’t have it both ways. Although, as your gut improves, and your enzymes become more powerful, you can probably get away with an occasional piece of pizza or glass of wine.

I’m not the food police. I try to tell you people that, I don’t police people with they eat. I always instill values about eating good, fresh, healthy food, and then you can, every now and then, get away with some “treats.”

If you want to achieve good gut health, fill your refrigerator with fresh food. Throw out the junk and buy the healthy stuff. Taking those steps will pay off for you in terms of energy, weight control, appetite control, less bloating, and less gas.

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Questions & Answers

The Connection Between Digestive Enzymes And Body Weight

Various scientific studies have demonstrated a connection between digestive enzyme problems and weight gain. Sometimes the issue is weight loss, but generally, the issue is weight gain.

If you’re trying to lose weight, an essential first step is making sure your gut is functioning very well. In particular, excellent stomach and pancreatic function can facilitate weight loss. For example, you want the pancreas to secrete ample amounts of lipase to ensure that dietary fat is broken some properly. You don’t want to be absorbing and storing too much fat. The same is true for carbohydrates because they can be turned into fat as well.

When you’ve got proper levels of digestive enzymes, you’ve usually got good energy levels. Having amply energy allows you to be more active and to maintain a balanced metabolic rate. You’ll have the energy to get out of the chair and start moving.

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Inactivity leads to weight gain, fatigue, brain fog, joint pain, and several other symptoms. As you get bigger, you’ll get even more tired, and blood sugar dysregulation can onset. Thyroid and adrenal dysfunction can also surface. When these hormones are out of whack, leptin, ghrelin, and other hormones involved in hunger and appetite control become dysregulated.

In my experience, having proper digestive enzyme levels translates into good weight control. Remember, there is a strong link between healthy enzyme levels, GI tract health, and the ability to maintain a healthy metabolic rate. The end result is a balanced weight.

If you’re struggling with a weight that is too high, checking out your digestive enzyme levels might be a good idea.

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Questions & Answers

What You Need To Know About Lactose Intolerance

A deficiency of digestive enzymes can absolutely be linked to lactose intolerance. Lactase is an enzyme that’s produced in the small bowel that breaks down a sugar found in milk called lactose.

The prevalence of lactose intolerance is anywhere from 5% to 100% within different ethnic groups. Indigenous peoples such as American Indians, a

Aboriginals from Australia, the Māori from New Zealand, and Hawaiian people, have a very high rate of lactose intolerance. Cows were not a part of the culture of these groups of people, which meant their gut didn’t have any reason to build robust levels of lactase.

On the other hand, people whose ancestors originated from northwestern Europe have a very low incidence of dairy intolerance. These are peoples who historically have had cows and goats. It makes sense, then, that their bodies developed the ability to break down lactose.

Symptoms of lactose intolerance include bloating, cramping, and diarrhea. Often the symptoms onset about 30 to 60+ minutes after having lactose. It’s possible to buy lactase drops at health food stores. Gut bacteria can also influence the ability to break down lactose properly.

People with a healthy microbiome that includes a minimal amount of yeast have a much better ability to handle lactose than people with disturbed gut microbiomes. A healthy digestive system comes with a healthy ability to break down carbohydrates and sugars, including lactose.

If you’ve got lactose intolerance, the best approach is to avoid this sugar. You can buy lactose-free products, but I don’t recommend including modified foods in your diet.

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If you’re not sure if you’re lactose intolerant, you can eliminate milk products for 14 days and then add a small amount of lactose-containing foods back into your diet. If adding lactose back results in cramping and bloating, I’d suggest moving on to a comprehensive stool analysis. Find out the state of your gut and make the necessary improvements. Fixing your gut alone may make a big difference in your ability to tolerate lactose.

Lactose intolerance comes in varying degrees. Some people with milder lactose intolerance can eat certain types of cheese, kefir, yogurt, or buttermilk without much

problem. These foods may be more acceptable to the gut than pure, unadulterated cow’s milk. Raw, organic milk from grass-fed cows may also be easier to tolerate. You may want to try a few of these foods before deciding that lactose has to be entirely eliminated from your diet.

Try to avoid black and white thinking about any whole food. People have been consuming dairy products for thousands of years, so clearly it can be tolerated by a lot of people. Ask yourself, “How do milk products affect my gut? What benefits do I get from this food? What are the disadvantages of including milk products in my diet?” You don’t want to become the food police. In my experience, small amounts of raw milk from a cow fed good food can be a fantastic food for the body.

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Questions & Answers

Can An Unhealthy Gut Cause Unhealthy Skin?

It’s not uncommon for symptoms of digestive enzymes deficiency to start gradually. Maybe it comes with bloating and gas, or some constipation and diarrhea. At some point other symptoms may join the fray and people find themselves seeking assistance from their doctor. By then, the symptoms have been present for a long time and doctors often prescribe medications. But, in many cases, the drugs only suppress symptoms. The underlying cause remains active, and more symptoms surface, which can come along with more medication. It’s a vicious cycle.

If you have a digestive enzyme deficiency and it continues without correction, a lot more problems can surface. This is particularly true if you aren’t eating a healthy diet and have a stressful lifestyle. It’s estimated that up to 60% of people with a digestive enzyme deficiency end up with small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO). About half the people I see with an enzyme deficiency also have Candida overgrowth in their gut. They may also have problems with other yeast, such as trichosporon.

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You may notice that there are certain foods you can’t eat without getting a reaction. It could be parsnip, pumpkin, baked potato, avocado, or any one of several foods that have been a part of your diet for years. You find yourself getting bloating, gas, crampy abdominal pain, and greasy, foul-smelling stool after eating. These are all symptoms of pancreatic insufficiency and digestive enzyme deficiency.

A lack of digestive enzymes can eventually result in a leaky gut as well as immune-mediated reactions to certain foods. These immune-mediated responses are often mounted against proteins as they are broken down into amino acids. The result can be itchy skin, eczema, dandruff, and a variety of other problems with the skin.

Over half of psoriasis cases are triggered by a yeast infection. Lots of people with dermatitis and eczema have had campylobacter or food poisoning. Many people get skin problems from antibiotics because this class of drugs does so much damage to the gut. Antibiotics can increase intestinal permeability, trigger antigen/antibody response, and decimate the beneficial bacteria in your gut. Skin problems are just one of the results of the damage done by antibiotics.

If you’ve got a skin problem, go see your naturopathic physician or integrated medical doctor, and get a comprehensive stool test done. You’ll be stunned to find it could well be different yeasts or SIBO-related bacteria that are causing your skin issues. Once these gut problems are cleared up, the skin problem often disappears.

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Questions & Answers

Is Leaky Gut Just A Sign You Are Getting Older

Is leaky gut just a sign that you’re getting older? Look at me. I’m an old guy. I’ve got no leaky gut. You don’t need leaky gut at any age. It’s something that’s created. A young person can die of cancer. An old person can die of cancer. Diseases can happen at any time. It depends on how well the person looks after their own body that will dictate the health of that person.

We’ve also worked out, science has worked out that genes are constantly changing and evolving. Every little thought that comes in your mind, every decision you make will affect the outcome of your health far more than what came before you. Nature or nurture. Think about it. It’s how you nurture the body. That’s the important thing.

What was the question again? Is leaky gut a sign of getting older? It’s not a sign at all. Leaky gut can occur at any age. Your gut can be destroyed just like that by going onto an antibiotic for about 7 to 10 days. That could set you up for leaky gut for years, for example. But so could a high stress environment. Many patients I’ve seen over the years, including many elderly people, have been in outstanding health.

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One of my most memorable patients was a man in his 70s, late 70s going on 80s, that was super fit and very friendly, outgoing, jovial, kind of man, probably fitter than most 30-year-olds I’ve seen. Probably got the libido of a 20-year-old guy. Proved to me that age has got no bearing on health. You know what’s got the bearing on health? Attitude, your attitude, your willingness to do certain things, discipline, disciplining your discipline, understanding that getting up early, going to bed not too late, eating the right food, sleeping well, not stressing much. All of these things will dictate how well your gut is going to be as you get older, and the state of your gut will dictate your overall state of your health.

So you can’t look and feel great with a shitty gut. The gut’s got to be in great shape for you to feel and look great. You can’t buy a nice gut. It doesn’t work like that. Think how much money you’ve got. I’ve seen poor people with outstanding health, and I’ve seen filthy rich people with disgustingly awful health. So money doesn’t come into it. You don’t have to have this problem at all. At any age, it’s a matter of getting on top of things and if things are really bad, assessing it and fixing it up, and that’s the intelligent approach.