Tag Archives: candida

Questions & Answers

How Do Low-Carb Diets Impact The Gut?

Does eating a low carb diet affect your gut health?

The ketogenic diet has become a worldwide trend. It involves eating more animal-based proteins, more fat, and fewer carbohydrates. A lot of people have taken nearly all grains out of their diet. Not just wheat, but all sorts of carbohydrates.

I’m noticing an alarming trend that so many people are diving headfirst into a ketogenic diet. They are consuming more fresh and processed meats, more fat, more butter, and more coconut oil. They’re also eating large amounts of eggs, chicken, and fish. They might be losing weight, but is it sustainable? Is it healthy? What’s going to happen to their gut over the long term?

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I’m worried about the impact on the gut. By reducing the intact of carbs and fiber, you can starve your colon of the short-chain fatty acids that it needs. SCFA’s are the byproducts of bacterial fermentation.

A ketogenic diet may also be low in antioxidants. A person may lose weight but end up with major gut problems instead due to imbalances in the GI tract. Some doctors respond to this concern by suggesting people follow a “healthy” keto diet. My concern with a healthy keto diet is people are still going to eat far too much meat.

By 2050, it’s predicted that there’ll be over 10 billion people on this planet, and meat consumption is completely unsustainable at that level of population. It’s even unsustainable today. We’re seeing what’s happening around the world with fires and with how much land an animal needs to produce a couple of hamburgers. It’s ridiculous. I’m not a vegan, and I’m not again saying you should not eat meat.

I think meat forms an important part of the diet, but I think it should make up a very small part of what we eat

A high-fat, high meat diet is not suitable for bowel health. It could even contribute to the acceleration of diseases like diabetes and heart disease.

What’s the solution? More plants in your diet. And you definitely don’t want to chop 100% of grains out of your diet. I suspect there are a lot of health complications after years of eating low-carb.

If you look at people living in the Mediterranean, they don’t cut out most of the grains in their diet. The Japanese haven’t taken rice out of their diet. Did they all die of heart disease at a young age? No, the opposite! They live long lifespans. They were skinny people; they weren’t fat people. They were balanced. They had balanced lifestyles, where they worked hard, and ate well.

These people make their own food and have a diet heavy in antioxidant-rich foods. They eat meat sparingly and have ample nuts, seeds, and vegetables. That, to me, is the basis of a healthy diet.

Some of the best carbs to include in your diet are quinoa, millet, oats, buckwheat, bananas, sweet potatoes, beetroots, blueberries and grapefruits, and brown rice.

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Questions & Answers

Is The Carnivore Diet The Key To Losing Weight?

Does the carnivore diet work for weight loss?

You can find a lot of good information on this topic by reading Chris Kresser online. He provides excellent, balanced information about several diets, including keto, paleo, and carnivore diets.

A carnivore diet is built around beef, lamb, pork, chicken, fish, and eggs. In some cases, dairy is also included to a limited extent.

I heard from several viewers on my YouTube channel that the carnivore diet is the way to go. I’m sure that it can be helpful in the short-term, but I think a long-term carnivore can lead to problems.

If we go way back, there are no groups of people who lived solely on meat. That type of eating pattern didn’t exist. It’s a fallacy to think the carnivore diet the the “natural” human diet. That is simply not true. Chris Kresser writes exceptionally well about that.

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For example, the Canadia Inuit would go to great lengths looking for lichen, berries, and other foods they could use to supplement the seal meat they ate. Most tribes have always foraged for carbohydrates to eat in addition to meat.

It’s a myth that our ancestors lived by roasting huge steaks over open fires.

If you look at what a carnivore diet does to your gut over the long term, the colon will lose out a bit. Meat is almost always exclusively digested higher up in the GI tract. As a result, there is not much residue left in the stool. It’s also a very low fiber diet.

It’s been shown that within 48 hours of starting a carnivore diet, the gut microbiome starts to change. I don’t like that at all.

For those people who promote the carnivore diet, I’d like them to show me someone who has been eating like that for forty years. I’d want to know what their gut looks like. What is their blood pressure like? How are their liver and kidneys doing? How has their heart managed all that animal fat?

I’ve been following the Mediterranean diet for forty plus years, and my heart and circulation are in fantastic shape.

I believe meat is an important part of the diet, but it should be consumed in small amounts. I think the carnivore diet can cause problems with vitamin and minerals levels over the long-term. I would worry about calcium, magnesium, and manganese, to give a few examples.

With my vegan patients, many will add some dairy or lean meats back into their diet after five years or thereabouts. Their B12 levels had become so low that they were starting to feel sick.
I think that the carnivore diet would also be hard to tolerate for more than five to seven years. I couldn’t stomach eating meat for breakfast for the rest of my life.

The carnivore diet may be an effective way to lose weight in the short-term, but I think the keto diet is a better option. If you wanted to do the carnivore diet for a short period, then you could slowly add some vegetables and fruit when you reach your weight-loss objective. But, for overall health, an all-meat diet is not the way to go.

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Questions & Answers

The Impact Of Sugar On The Gut

Can too much sugar affect your gut?

Absolutely. Too much sugar can wreck your gut.

Sugar, as you probably have realized by now, is highly addictive. When you start hitting seven teaspoons or more a day, the addiction becomes very strong.

I know some people are so addicted to sugar that it’s almost impossible for them to come off it. Sugar has demonstrated addictive qualities like narcotics. That’s how strong it is for some people.

But, I can assure you once you get through the cravings stage, you won’t want to add any more to your diet. As you focus on eating fruit rather than sweets, you’ll be even less inclined to eat a high-sugar diet.

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Sugar can damage your gut in many ways. When your intake is seven teaspoons or more of sugar, the body has difficulty processing it properly. As a result, a significant amount of sugar passes into the colon, where it can cause intense fermentation followed by gas and bloating.

Sugar that hasn’t been digested properly will also prevent good bacteria from sticking to the colon wall. As a result, there is a reduction in the levels of beneficial bifidobacteria.

Lower bifidobacteria accounts are associated with fatigue, which can trigger a desire for sugar, and the cycle continues.

If that’s the cycle you’re in, I recommend intervening to prevent health problems over the long term. Sometimes replacing white sugar with a little bit of honey is a relatively easy first step.

Refined sugar is not good for your gut. It’ll cause a mess that’s not worth it in the long run.

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Questions & Answers

Alcohol And Your Weight: What You Need To Know

Can high alcohol consumption cause long-term weight gain?

I can talk about alcohol with a lot of experience. I grew up with an alcoholic step-father, and I drank excessively in my late 20s. I didn’t get fat, but I did drink too much alcohol.
Many people drink too much alcohol. It happens particularly with high stress and life transitions.

How many overweight people have you seen knocking back shots of Vodka? Usually, people who drink excessive amounts of hard alcohol are quite skinny.

Typical beer drinking is often associated with a beer belly. But, there are many studies that show that alcohol doesn’t make you fat. But, what it does do is severely impact your metabolic rate.

Alcohol slows the gut right down.

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People who drink a lot of alcohol often don’t care what they eat. Big drinkers often like to have sweets to go along with their alcohol. Other drinkers want to have something salty to go along with their alcohol. If it’s bar food, it’s high-calorie food.

Drinking can also stimulate the appetite. Also, people drop their inhibitions when they are drinking, which can lead to eating too much food.

There is an even more sinister side to alcohol. In my experience, stool testing is always abnormal when people are drinking a lot of alcohol.

Moderate levels of alcohol intake can increase the lifespan of some women due to improving healthy cholesterol levels.

I urge people not to drink every day. I enjoy drinking, but I do it in a very controlled way. You don’t want to be controlled by alcohol.

Moderate alcohol intake won’t cause significant weight gain.

If you’re using mixes for cocktails, you can end up consuming a lot of sugar and calories. Now you can see how weight gain can happen.

I think it is the cheese and crackers that cause more of a weight problem than the glass of wine.

The key is nothing in excess – this holds not only for alcohol but for anything in life.
Yes, high alcohol intake can contribute to increased weight over time. I recommend moderate to light intake to avoid the complications associated with drinking too much alcohol.

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Questions & Answers

Skinny Genes: What You Need To Know

Do skinny genes really exist, or are they a myth?

I think skinny genes exist, and so do scientists.

There have been many studies on the genetics of weight conducted over the years.

If we go back decades, there was a professor at Arizona State University who was studying genetics using Drosophila (fruit flies). This scientist found that some fruit flies were fat and some were quite lean. The fat fruit flies had a significant advantage because their extra weight could carry them through tough times. The same can be said for polar bears – they need a lot of fat to survive difficult circumstances. However, that’s not what humans living in New York City or L.A. need.

The gene that resulted in bigger fruit flies was named “adipose.” This gene has been studied in mice and rats as well. It turns out if the activity of the adipose gene is upregulated, mice live longer and burn fat faster.

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In another study of close to 100,000 people, it was discovered that about 1/2000 people have a variation on chromosome 16. There is a small patch of information on this chromosome that isn’t present in the other 1999/2000 people.

This extra genetic code resulted in a lower than average appetite. These people ended up very lean and sometimes underweight to the point of concern.

You probably know a lady or a guy that can eat whatever they want, and they just don’t put on weight. That could be part of this chromosomal aberration that we’re talking about here.

In some people, it’s dangerous because no matter what they eat, they can’t gain any weight. It’s just as awful being in that situation as it is being 300 or 400 pounds.

In my opinion, genetics also influences personality. In turn, the personality will also naturally drive up or down the endocrine system. Hypothalamic, pituitary, and thyroid activity could all be a bit higher or a bit lower depending on genetics. The hormonal activity can then influence weight.

Remember, it’s not just about genetics. Your weight also reflects the food you eat, how much you move, and your lifestyle.

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