Jay Feldman 0:12 Welcome to Episode 28 of the energy balance podcast, where we teach you how to live without constant hunger and fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep and all sorts of other low energy symptoms by maximizing your cellular energy. I'm Jay Feldman. I'm a health coach and independent health researcher, and joining me again today is my good friend Mike fave, who has been researching health and nutrition with me for a long time now, and also draws on his own experiences from working within the healthcare industry in today's q&a episode, we're going to start off by continuing the discussion from our last q&a episode, as far as how we can make healthy eating a little bit easier. And then we'll also be talking about the ray peat inspired carrot salad and whether it's an effective antibiotic. We'll also discuss how you can replenish a healthy gut microbiome after using antibiotics or antifungals, whether those are pharmaceutical or herbal. And then we'll talk about, along with that idea, whether probiotics make sense for restoring a healthy gut microbiome, and why we might not want to be using them in this case or for maintaining optimal gut health. And we'll also be talking about how you can keep your bowels regular and improve gut motility. If you have any questions you'd like us to discuss on a future Q and A episode, you can send those in to Jay at Jay Feldman wellness.com and that's Jay why at Jay why Feldman wellness.com or feel free to leave them in the comments on the YouTube video or anywhere else on the podcast to check out the show notes for today's episode, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast or you can take a look at the articles and studies and anything else that We referenced throughout today's episode, and if you are looking to restore your gut health, or you're dealing with any low energy symptoms, whether that is fatigue or weight gain or cravings and hunger or hormonal imbalances, you're not sleeping well, or you did have some gut issues that maybe have put you in a position where you're trying to fix up your gut health, and head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and sign up for a free energy balance mini course where you will learn about the primary things that you want to do to optimize your cellular energy balance and increase your cellular energy availability. And I'll discuss why this is really the key to improving our health and recovering from all of these low energy symptoms, and go through some of the main things you want to focus on as far as nutrition and lifestyle are concerned, in order to optimize our health from this perspective. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and with that, let's get started. Some things that can make it easier that you and I do is cooking in bulk, preparing ahead of time. I typically weekly will will have some sort of meal that I'll normally do in a slow cooker, just because I find that really easy, throw a bunch of ingredients in. There's a million recipes that you can use or modify, and I have meals already prepared for the week. So if I was going to do, you know, my like liver one day, but I forgot to defrost it, or didn't have time, or whatever, I always have something as a backup and as something, you know, to have throughout the week. I always have go tos available. I mentioned eggs and bacon is one that, you know, doesn't have to be defrosted. It just stays for a while. Things like that are just small things that make it easier. I'm trying to think of like some snacks to that you can bring with.Turkey, dried fruits are really easy. You just have to buy them. There's juices. As far as for my for my food prep specifically, the only things I have to cook are whatever meat source I'm going to be eating. I don't have to cook the juice. I don't have to cook the fruit. I don't have to make the dried fruit or anything. I have to peel the carrot. I don't cook the carrot. And then the other thing that's helpful is, if you have a significant other, like having working together with that because, at least with my girlfriend, I we eat the same thing. So sometimes she'll cook, and other times I'll cook, and we'll like, if we have to do something, we'll both like, we'll split the task up so she can go do the cooking and I'll go take care of this. And that will work, because both of us are working. So we'll work together to make sure that everything is is taken care of, or, like, right now I'm doing the podcast, and she'll go get groceries, and then we'll come back and we'll get everything set up. So having again, relationships and community are an extremely important part of make living in general, but making it through some of the culture that we live in currently. I mean, it's really helpful to have family and a significant other. You know, assuming that you don't have it's not like a toxic situation. And around that basically, can you guys can work off each other and help each other. And then, if not, then having things prepared in bulk, or setting up your diet so you don't have to cook very much. For example, with having taking if you don't have time to cook, well, you have bring a cart and a juice to work, and some dried fruit and maybe beef jerky, and then you don't have to cook anything. Yeah, you know, that you're all set. And then for breakfast, just make a whole bunch of hard boiled eggs in the morning one day, and then just leave them in the fridge. And then you just take them out microwave them when you're ready to go. I mean, make microwave them outside the shell, and yeah, and then all you have to do is you just eat a few eggs in the morning with some juice or a coffee or whatever. And if you have milk, then you don't have to prepare a milk. You just make the coffee, or you set a timer on your your Keurig, or whatever it is. It makes it for you, and you add milk, and then you have two eggs and a cup of juice, and you're ready to go. So you can set things up in a way that gives you the extra time. There's a little forethought, and, I mean, takes time to play with, but yeah, that's definitely a good for this. The slow cooker is really good as well. We do that, we make a stew, and then we'll put like, four pounds of meat in the stew, or we'll cook four pounds of ground meat, and then we'll just eat it off the next few days. So, and then we don't really have to cook anything. We just put it in containers and we're ready to go. So it makes things a little bit easier. You just grab it, you go, and it's the same thing as having fast food. It's actually quicker, because you don't have to drive anywhere to go pick anything up or anything. So yeah. And from the economic side, too, it's cheaper for much better quality and more food, typically, even than things like fast food. Mike 6:32 Oh it actually, it really, especially if you get a bunch of grass fed ground meat or something like that. You cook it. It's way cheaper than having to go get meat every day at Chipotle or something like that.Jay Feldman 6:44 And another one that just, you know, you had mentioned beef jerky. There's also those beef sticks or strips and things that are typically higher in fat. So I like to have those also something like epic stuff, yeah, there's, there's Yeah, or other brands that almost like the equivalent of, like, Slim Jims, yeah, but it's they just have more fat in there, whereas the beef jerky is really lean. So sometimes I I like to have more of that fat source. So yeah.Mike 7:08 What I would so the beef jerky would I actually have people do, if they only have the Lean options, is get chocolate too, and then you have fat from the chocolate and and protein from the jerky. Um, or in, in my case, sometimes I'll have olives or something like that.Jay Feldman 7:23 Yeah, olives work. Banana chips or banana chips, coconut oil. Potato Chips are also good ones to always have on the go. Yeah, yeah, all right. Do you have anything else to add there?Mike 7:35 One one day, this is semi tangent one day we should probably go over like, what to look for in labels and things like that.Jay Feldman 7:42 Yeah, that sounds as a good idea.Mike 7:45 Just like, Oh, if you go to beef jerk, you want to stay away from XYZ, yeah.Jay Feldman 7:49 Yeah, it's definitely a good idea. And there's so much to dig into there. Another thing I would say is, yeah, that it takes time. I'm talking about the normalization of it and making whole meal, homemade meals. And just especially if you're not used to cooking, or not used to cooking on your own, or using something like a slow cooker, it takes time to adjust. It takes time to experiment. That's kind of the fun of it. So I know it can feel a little stressful at first, but it gets way easier. You get into routine. You have meals that are your go tos, that are, you know, same thing with all snacks and stuff. So plantain chips is another one that that's in a good quality, like Sustainable Palm Oil, or sometimes coconut oil, or coconut oil. Yeah, there's a..Mike 8:31 Chips, yeah. And then there's sweet potato chips too, yeah. The one thing I'll say is you're good. Sometimes you're gonna make meals. You're gonna mess them up, like we made a stew that we made a stew the other week, and we tried to put kidney in with the lamb, and it ruined the whole stew. We were just when we were just eating it, we're like, oh, so really, you're gonna mess up. It just is how it is. And then eventually you, like, you'll work things out. But as far as really simple things to do, get a bunch of ground meat, cook it in butter, it's really hard to mess up ground meat cooked in butter and was and salt it like it's kind it's kind of hard to burn it. It's kind of hard to make it taste terrible, even if you could do chicken breasts in the an oven with with, uh, coconut oil. It's kind of hard. I mean, you could burn them and they'll be dry, but it's kind of hard to make it nasty or anything like that. Those things are really easy to do, um, and like the beef bacon or cooking eggs, like learning how to fry an egg, really easy things to do. When we were in college, we didn't really, we didn't add any spices to our food. I mean, we you and I were just eating eggs or..Jay Feldman 9:35 Well, yeah, too much, but too many spices at one point.Mike 9:38 At one point, yeah, but then after that, it was just ground meat with salt and butter, or ground meat with tallow and salt, or eggs cooked in coconut oil or something like that. So that just if you could just do those things, that's great. And then the other thing I'll mention for people is, if you do tolerate dairy well or something, you can make shakes for yourself. Shakes are really easy with like. A strawberry banana smoothie with with milk or something, if you tolerate it, or if you don't tolerate Yeah, or milk and collagen, or if you tall don't tolerate casein, but you tolerate whey, then whey in collagen, or goat milk, whatever it is, you can do things like that. And then another thing is, it's also cheese. It's really easy. If you're really short on time, you can just grab some cheese, and then you can lunch. Can be like cheese and fruit for meal and juice, and you have fiber, carbohydrates, fat and protein there. So those are really easy sources. And I mean, again, it's up to individual tolerance, but those are things to try and that you can grab, and you just have to go to the store and buy the stuff. And now you don't even have to go to the store. So.Jay Feldman 10:44 Yeah, I don't know if that's one of the good things of the culture. I think that still might be borderline problematic side, but I guess for people who don't have any time at all, that's better than eating out for every meal. Yeah? Well, yeah, yeah.Mike 10:58 All right, so you have anything else? Jay Feldman 11:01 No. Mike 11:02 So the next question was a follow up for something that we talked about on the previous Q and A, was it the Q and A? Yep, and it was the we mentioned some antiseptic things for the gut. The question here was about the carrot salad and why we didn't specifically mention that as an antiseptic?Jay Feldman 11:20 Yeah, yeah. So that was Carl who had asked what, just what we think about the carrots out if there's a reason why we didn't mention it? Yeah. I mean, I would just say that. I think that. I mean, as you, I know you eat a carrot with every meal. I'd go through periods where I have them daily. I go through periods where I don't have them at all. But I think that it is helpful as kind of like a general antiseptic, a general kind of a more of a bacterial static where it's preventing overgrowth and things that does have some antimicrobial properties, especially if you're adding the coconut oil or olive oil with..Mike 11:55 Vinegar together, or lemon juice and vinegar with it. And so if you have, like it really becomes more antiseptic if you have the coconut oil with the medium chain triglycerides in there with the vinegar, like, maybe, like an apple cider vinegar and some lemon and salt with the carrot, that can definitely have, number one, some stimulating properties to the intestine, but also can Have some mild antiseptic effects. And my experience the carrot itself, like just the carrot is just it stimulates peristalsis. I know as soon as I eat a carrot, like, I can feel my intestine start to go, so starts to, like, move and whatnot. So it does trigger the peristaltic function. At least in my experience, as far as far as antiseptic properties, I think they're very, very mild. It wouldn't if you have, like, a severe gut issue, I don't think that carrots are going to solve the problem. They may help you move your bowels a little bit more depending on what's going on. But I don't think, and this is repeatable for a few people that I worked with, friends, family, people who asked me online in different areas, you know, what will what have you tried to help you go the carrot does stimulate people's intestines and to go to the bathroom or just stimulate it in general, increase trans decrease transit time, so, but the antiseptic qualities itself, like it's not gonna if you have SIBO, or you small intestine bacterial overgrowth or some type of dysbiosis, I don't even care. It's gonna solve it. I don't think it's going to make, like, really that much of a difference, besides for people helping, keeping you regular for a period, for a period of time or while you eat it, um, yeah.Jay Feldman 13:32 Make it worse. It can, it can. Some people, yeah, yeah. For people who do have a pretty major or somewhat more mild digestive Yeah, issue, dysbiosis, pathogenic bacteria, fungus, whatever it can. Yeah, it can just trigger symptoms untilMike 13:47 you clear it out. Yeah, it could really make some the carrot can make you worse. Any food can make you worse than that point. It really depends on at that point. So that's why we didn't mention as like a major antiseptic. It's not gonna I don't think it makes or break. Most people, the coconut oil and apple cider vinegar, though, can make a difference to especially in very mild cases, it can make a difference. And that having the carrot with those together, the carrot sort of helps to bring it through the intestine, to some extent. So those things are all and those are, those are no vinegar and coconut oil. Have noted anti microbial properties. So it's, I would say it's more those than the carrot itself. I know on the ray, peat, steer and things like that, people, oh, the carrot. The carrot, I had a lot of digestive issues. The carrot didn't solve those problems. I mean, had helped keep me regular, which being regular is important. It's very important. Um, you know, if you're not going for multiple days in a row, that you have to start considering or even daily, or even daily, yeah, you have to start considering that you have something, you have something going on. Maybe you're eating something that's slowing you down. Um, and a lot of people will come to to rape. Eats fear of diet, or the fine stuff with Danny Roddy, or people like that and Dan, don't get me wrong, Daniel ROS great, but they they'll start taking in a lot of dairy, and then they start to get constipated. And that can happen with some people having too much dairy because of the opiate effect of the casein, especially if you have weaker digestion, or your body's just deal with dairy very well. You can have a conspiratory effect, and in those cases, I don't think the carrots gonna solve a regularity problem. If you're really not tolerating the dairy, I don't think it really makes that much of a difference. I know Ray says it a lot, but I just, in my experience, I haven't found it to be I haven't found that to be the case. So,Jay Feldman 15:46 Yeah, just to put that in context for people who aren't already aware, Ray PEAT Talks about using a carrot salad where you shut up the carrot and then some oil and vinegar. Typically mentions coconut oil or sometimes olive oil, and using that to clear out intestinal issues, and yeah, so I agree, I haven't seen it be that effective for actually clearing out some sort of infection or dysbiosis, but I do think it's helpful for keeping you regular, and also maybe it does have enough antiseptic qualities, especially with the oil and the vinegar, where it will help to Keep you clear. Once things are clear, and there's a lot of factors, like other factors that go in there, but regularity is a major one, and then having certain things that are mildly antiseptic, like a carrot salad or or even just a whole carrot can be helpful there, too. Yeah.Speaker 1 16:35 Another thing, or other things that can help keep you regular. I just want to go over this real quick, even though it tangential. Starches can tend to bind people up. In my experience, the starches can bind me up or slow down transit time a little bit. The fruits, in general, non starchy fruits, tend to have a they make you go. Basically they will, they will decrease transit time you're eating a lot of fruit, you can notice, if you go from a diet that's heavy in starches to one that's more fruit and sugar based, you can start to realize that you're going to be going a lot more in the day. And that's the fruits have a lot of soluble fibers and insoluble fibers, and the combination of them with the polyphenols and things like that, and the lack of binding quality that some of the starch has can lead to you going a decent amount, and they can actually keep you pretty regular, especially if you're doing it with things like eating raw carrots or or something like that. So that can trigger you to go dairy, depending on some people digest it well. For other people, can have a constipating effect, um, and then for some people, the whole grains and that, and this is not our recommendation to necessarily eat them, but whole grains, um, specifically like wheat germ and things like that, they can make you go. They can. I don't recommend them. I don't think it's necessarily very helpful. They irritate my intestine, but I but they can definitely make you go. Some of the like, if you have brown rice too, for some people, makes them go. For some people can constipate them. It really depends. But in general, the starches, like a bananas and white rice and things like that can have, like, a more of a binding effect, whereas fruits, bananas, white rice and dairy can have more of a binding effect, whereas fruits in general can have more of a, I don't know how to put it. Makes you go stimulatory, stimulating effect. Yeah.Speaker 1 16:56 And it's definitely like, I know you mentioned it, so just to clarify, it's definitely not that black and white. You know, I definitely some people will have starch in the regular they take it out and they're much less regular. It can be a bulk, uh, situation as well. There's not enough bulk there. So it's, yeah, I mean, a lot of it's individual, but I do think the importance of regularity is a lot. It's very important.Speaker 1 18:59 You want to be going daily. You want your vows to be and the way to think about this is essentially, you have a whole bunch of bacteria and bacterial products and UN and digested food and undigested food products just sitting in your intestine. And if you it's like, if you just left it's not necessarily the same as this. I mean, it's bad analogy. But if you like left food out for days in a warm, moist environment, you it's just you. You want your you from like a health perspective, you want your intestines to keep moving in the hospital, when people don't go for and some people don't go for weeks, and you that's in the hospital, they won't let that happen the they actually, if a patient doesn't go for more than three days, they need to get laxative. Everyone gets stool softeners and laxatives to start, but they get extra laxatives. So you can have a patient get like, three different types of laxatives and then an enema if they're not going. Because what winds up happening is, if you get a. This is for older people who are very sick. They tend to, they can get, like, what's called paralytic alias, where their, uh, their intestines basically get stopped up, and they don't, they don't move, um, and you don't. It could be causing intestinal obstruction, but based going is really important. A lot of people that I see start to decompensate, or get worse, tend to not have gone to the bathroom for a couple days, and then you start to settle progressively. And then they have and one time I had a person, he was doing terrible. He was on a he had a he had a tracheostomy. He was on he had just gotten sent from the ICU. He had a vent previously, so there was machine breathing for him. And he hadn't gone for days, and he was getting worse worse. And then when he finally went, he like his saturation, his ability for hemoglobin to carry oxygen, his lungs and everything, freaked out. And his he like, decompensated completely. And then after he went, he was like, way better after. And I've seen that happen with a few people, where they they haven't gone for a while, and then when they finally go, they do better. So being regular is, is really important. Um, in my experience, I think there's some there's research about it as well, but just you have a whole bunch of bacterial products and undigested food just sitting, or digested food sitting in your intestine in a warm, uh, fermented environment. So.Jay Feldman 21:21 Yeah, yeah. I mean, we talk all the time about how much of a of factor endotoxin plays in all sorts of disease and dysfunction. And a good way to absorb and a good way to have a lot of endotoxin in your body is to leave food with bacteria that have endotoxin and then let them sit there and then get absorbed. So, and the reason, you know, endotoxin will actually cause intestinal permeability. It'll cause leaky gut, which will then allow it to be absorbed. And then, of course, the bacteria consuming the food that's left there isn't good, you know, is going to create more endotoxin as well. So, I mean, that's, there's other factors here too, but that regularity is really important to keep things moving through, so that the right things are absorbed and the wrong things are not, and also you don't have this excess, these excess overgrowth and things so and that kind of leads into another question. Katie had asked, How to replenish a healthy gut. And so many people when they're after they've maybe used some of those herbal antimicrobials that we talked about, or other antimicrobials that we talked about in that previous Q and A episode, they'll, you know, they're concerned, or even if they're using a pharmaceutical antibiotic, they're concerned about probiotics and making sure that they're there they've replenished their gut afterwards so that they don't have these issues come about. And it's a valid concern, but I think the best way to do those things is to allow it as to allow our microbiome to be shaped by the having the right environmental inputs, just like it naturally would. And for the most part, if we're eating the quote, unquote right foods, that will happen. So for you know, things like dairy, assuming you tolerate it well, fruits, especially between the polyphenols which have, which basically support the growth of certain bacteria and fungus and not others, which is really important. I mean, the the types of microbiota that are encouraged to be produced from fruits, for example, are typically the healthy ones, and there's a reason for that. So eating the right things, dairy, fruits, having enough fat which has an anti microbial effect and then also leads to bio stimulation, which has an anti small intestine, exactly. Yeah. So those things will help to keep the small intestine clear. Carbohydrate also helps keeping those things clear by providing fuel for the intestines as well.Mike 23:41 And stimulating, allowing for mucus production and things like that, which is really important in the intestine.Jay Feldman 23:45 Yeah, eating enough overall is a pretty huge factor. And this kind of goes back to regularity too, where, when you're not eating enough and or if you're under a lot of stress, that's going to slow things down intestinally. And one of, I mean, a few of the things that slow down motility the most are hypothyroidism, which just means low metabolism, basically, and then also stress, which directs uh, blood flow and energy away from the gut. And so like having good gut motility is again one of the best ways, most important ways, to keep the the wrong pathogenic bacteria and fungi from proliferating and causing problems. And so, in a roundabout way, what I'm kind of getting at, as far as replenishing healthy gut, the most important thing is preventing the pathogenic ones from overgrowing and causing a dysbiotic gut, as opposed to doing things in particular to support the quote, unquote, healthy ones. And part of this like, the reason for that is just because they're so there's so little known about probiotics, and there's such variation in quality, and people have such varying responses that I tend to stay away from.Mike 24:55 Yes, kind of hard to have a recommendation some. I mean, you can read all these rat studies and all. Studies you want in them and and some people they help, and some people they don't. And some people they make it worse, and some people, and the thing is, is in a lot of studies, you don't really get any colonization with much of the probiotics. A lot of them don't really stay, at least from what we've seen so far. And the thing is, you don't want a lot of probiotic to stay in the small intestine. You don't want the pro, you don't want a high amount of bacteria in the test. And I mean, there's reports of people having overgrowth of positive bacteria in the small intestine. That's not a good thing, either. So what it's a hard recommendation to make, to say, oh, take all these probiotics. Take this probiotic, and then there's people who have problems, and they take them, and it sort of maintains it for a little while, and it doesn't work eventually, or they're just, it's just a really difficult it's we don't know, I feel like we don't know so much yet about the, specifically, the microbiome and which probiotics work. And the other thing is, is I don't think it's going to be one species that makes or breaks people, because there's so many different species and different types of bacteria, and they have a lot of different interrelationships and diet changes them and this and that. So I think eliminating pathogenic species is helpful. Eliminating different overgrowth is helpful, eliminating SIBO is helpful, which is small intestine bacterial overgrowth, and then making sure that the gut lining is intact is really important. And that's, again, what you said, having enough energy, having enough carbohydrate, and then for specific things to keep the gut lining intact is eating enough protein, having some collagen, hydrolysate or things like that, is helpful, making sure you the fat intake is high with, like what you said, and other if you're having, still having issues, bile acids can be helpful with there's one Toro or so deoxychollic acid, which we mentioned previously. Those things can be helpful, making sure that you have adequate B vitamins, because intestines are rapidly dividing epithelium, which is basically just like a skin, a covering an outer portion of certain types of cells, and they rapidly divide. So they have a high metabolic requirement, and specifically a high requirement for B vitamins, because they have a lot of replication going on, because you're constantly shedding your skin and your your intestinal layer. So those are really important. So enough polyphenols is important to have from fruit, and enough of specific fibers, like the grain fibers, I think, tear up the intestinal tract. In my experience, interestingly, there was a doctor, Dr Kellogg, who was prescribing high amounts of insoluble grain fiber with a religious bent behind it to prevent people from having sex outside of marriage, types of things because, and that's where you have your Kellogg cereal from. That's his company morphed into this big conglomerate now. So he and why, where it's coming from. But a lot of the grain fiber, I think, is irritating. So then the fruits and vegetables have a lot of polyphenols and things like that, and then a lot of saturated monounsaturated fat help to clear out the small intestine on an adequate protein is important for maintaining the intestinal lining, because it's made out of essentially proteins and carbohydrates, and the mucus layer is made out of carbohydrates, specifically, and inadequate B vitamins to keep replication going. So all those things are really important. I think you want to while you're doing your clearing out, assuming things don't bother you. You want to be focusing on diet in this perspective, and you want to be keeping that intestinal lining intact as best that you can with a bunch of methods that we've talked about previously. Jay Feldman 28:46 Yeah, I would definitely refer back to those earlier gut episodes we did another a couple other factors to consider making sure your meals are spaced out enough that in a way that allows for the full migrating motor complex to work its magic and move all of the food through so that you don't end up with those overgrowth is also, or can also be important. Having enough movement throughout the day can also be really helpful as far as gut mentality goes, and stimulating our intestinal peristalsis. So those are things to consider. Mike 29:18 Avoiding unnecessary antibiotic courses, I think is important to you know, if you're if you have a cold, don't go to your doctor and get a Z pack. If you're really sick, go to the doctor, fine. But if you're just having the sniffles or something like that, I know a lot of people want something to take. I don't think the antibiotic is not necessarily going to help in a lot of those situations. Of those situations, or even for things like the flu. I'm not saying don't go to your doctor. That's different story. But oh, antibiotics aren't going to help with the flu, and a lot of cases, is not going to help with the flu. It's not going to do much.Jay Feldman 29:53 I mean, then, assuming that the flu is actually the flu.Mike 29:57 Assuming it's actually the flu, yeah, because it's. General inflammatory response, so we could have something else going on, but go get checked out, and then if the doc saying, hey, the flu it I don't need anybody. Let's see how it goes. Doc, I don't know if I need antibiotics. Or ask him what they think. Ask the doctor what they think about that. I mean, even health care, it's a big thing now, because of resistance, they don't want people to be taking antibiotics unnecessarily. And it's also not good, because if you're going to get over it anyway. There's no need to call if to potentially put yourself at risk for causing some type of dysbiotic symptom. And then the other thing to keep in mind is for a lot of people that are giving young kids a lot in their teens, doxycycline and things like that for acne, and then people reported having like, a lot of bowel issues when they come off later on. Those are things to keep in mind as well, that if you're taking medications, or even drugs like Metformin for people and people with diabetes, which we can also get to we'll get to at some point soon in the next few questions, what you'll see is that Metformin has an antibiotic effect in the gut, and a different like I just saw a recent study that certain blood pressure medications have an have an antibiotic effect, so they actually lower endotoxin. And so a lot of drugs have different mechanisms besides the stated mechanism of the pharmaceutical company. So keep in mind that when you're taking something, it can have a whole bunch of other effects that you don't necessarily know about, and you can develop issues from, I mean, I had a patient recently. He got a bunch of courses of IV antibiotics, and then afterwards, he developed eczema all over his body. But he's 80, he's like, I never had eczema in my life. I didn't have eczema when I was a kid, and now I have eczema all over my body. And, I mean, he's asked the doctor, saying, maybe it's neuropathic or neurogenic rash or something like that, not eczema some, because it doesn't make sense. Yeah. I was like, Dude, you probably just destroyed your flora and your gut, and now you have some type of overgrowth for something. But it's not recognized in the medical community to have, like, a maybe a candida overgrowth in the large intestine causing symptoms of eczema because, and a lot there's studies talking about eczema with that overgrowth of Candida species and IGE related allergies and things like that. Eczema has an IGE component. So, you know, really, it really like in this situation, he was septic, so he needed the antibiotics. But I have seen people take courses and have problems after they develop food intolerance in the hospital, they develop food intolerances, weird rashes, site like depression, weird weird symptoms, mood symptoms. So just those are things to keep in mind with taking any type of medication or even things like Accutane for acne and things like that. Keep in mind that, yeah, it'll get rid of acne, but what else is it doing? Or finasteride or something like that? Yeah, may stop your hair loss, but what else is going to happen? Because it doesn't just affect this one pathway all the time, and I know this is tan tangential, but just something to keep in mind.Jay Feldman 32:59 Yeah, no, I've seen it as well with with clients who have been on doxycycline for acne, for example, and then went off and had a whole slew of really intense symptoms following, like, so really intense fatigue or autoimmune issues coming up. So, yeah, it's, it's definitely a an issue and a complex one. And again, it's not as simple as just giving probiotics after which has been the kind of mode of action in the alternative community, is that, Oh, you just need to make sure you take antibiotic or probiotics if you take an antibiotic. And now that's starting to happen in the conventional mainstream as well, where they're prescribing them. But then there's also research showing that these probiotics can actually prevent proper gut recolonization after antibiotics, and that also it affects people differently. As we said, there's like in the research, they show individual responses to these things that are like, very that vary. And so that's again.Mike 33:52 I see it in the hospital all the time I see them giving there's prescriptions now for different there's Flora store and there's a resabid, which are. One is, I think Flora store, I think is the the sacral Michi, the yeast, I butcher that, and then the other one is the lactobacillus three sub and they basically, they give those patients who have and who take antibiotics, and they're worried about them getting C diff, but even taking them, they still get C diff. The patients are still getting C Diff so and then the other thing to keep in mind is certain probiotics in some like, even some of the soil forming ones, and then certain other strains, like, there's some Enterobacter strains of probiotics that they have out some of those and immunocompromised people or older people have been associated with sepsis and like, there's like, even some of the yeast Probiotics have caused fungal sepsis and immunocompromised or sick older patients. So they may have some type of symbiotic or mutualistic function in the body, but they can. Be a problem. So you can have overgrowth sepsis. I'm sure is rare for most people. You're walking around normal person. I and I don't, I would say it's probably a very small chance you get sepsis. But there are studies of people getting sepsis with that. And I know even for my own dad, he was drinking a lot of kombucha, and it was a lot. It was heavy on it had Bacillus coagulans, which is a soil based probiotic, and then it had a lot of, uh, specific yeast in there. I think it was like, the satramycetyls, Baladi one. And he got, like, See, he got SIBO from it. He was drinking it every day. He was, like, addicted to it. He couldn't get out. And then he was started to realize, Oh, I'm having a lot, like, I'm burping a lot, a lot of burping, and I'm having a lot of, like, bloating, and I'm having diarrhea, and I'm like, do you need to stop drinking the kombucha? You need to go see your doctor and get like, a breath test or something. And basically, the doctor is saying that he probably he had maybe some type of bacterial overgrowth in the intestine, and then they want to give him a probiotic. And then I just like, why don't you try some, some herbal anti microbials? And you know, like, take that for a little while and try and move your diet, your your carbohydrate sources, to something a little bit more easily digested, like simpler sugars, so that you're not the simple sugars aren't going all the way down deeper in the small intestine than the starches are. And if you have an overgrowth of bacteria getting that and over time, he got fine. He cleared it, he got better. But he for a few months there, he was really uncomfortable because he was drinking so much kombucha that he gave himself what seemed to be SIBO. So yeah.Jay Feldman 36:42 And it's, it's interesting, because I've seen, I've seen people who respond poorly to that, and I've also seen people who actually respond really well to I have as well. Yeah, store bought kombucha and like, a drastic, see a drastic improvement in symptoms.Mike 36:56 So again, this is why we don't want to make a recommendation Jay Feldman 37:01 Well, and that's why I typically don't go that route. I typically would not go towards the probiotic route, because of that and there. And it makes so much more sense to go the, you know, to allow your microbiome to restore on its own by giving the right inputs, food wise and environment wise. And as far as the SIBO from like lactic acid bacteria, that's not uncommon either. I mean, there is, there's research showing that those probiotics can cause brain fog, SIBO and, like, lactic acidosis. So.Speaker 1 37:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just it's important to keep that, especially because people are taking, like, in your yogurt, how? I mean, how much bacteria is in a cup of yogurt? I'm not 100% sure, but I know some people are taking, like, like, couple 100 billion units colony forming units of bacteria, and then, or like, trillions and high dose this, and high dose that. And it's like, I mean, you could be really, you could be causing an issue. Some people it helps out. Some people just clears out whatever they got going on. And that's that's possible as well. So the one thing I will point out is some of the soil sport, the spore forming, ones that that are talked about in the ray peat community, and the ones that specifically haven't been associated with sepsis or like any type of pathogenesis. So it's like B subtilis, Bacillus subtilis, that one isn't really known to colonize the gut. Usually, from what I've seen, it will stay in the gut for about 21 days after you use it for a little while, and then it basically it just closes out that, because it's not the environment that it really thrives in. So for short courses, I've seen reports of people clearing C Diff with with that and clostridia, the fecel. I think it's is the full name, but we just call it C Diff in the hospital, a really rough infection, really difficult to get over, especially if you're immunocompromised. And basically that usually occurs when you've wiped out your normal Flora with a whole bunch of antibiotics, and that one's really difficult, and that's hard to get rid of. And then the treatment for it is often harsh antibiotics, um, specifically vancomycin. And that really just, you're just it just wrecks it worse. It just makes it because then you get off, and since the C diff is also a spore forming bacteria, Once you clear the environment, once you the once you start using Van Gogh, the the C Diff will spore form. So because it's the environment's not good anymore, but the spores stay in the intestinal tract, and then basically what happens is, as soon as you stop the course of antibiotics, the spores re germinate, and you have C Diff again. So I've seen patients just have C Diff antibiotics, the C Diff goes away, C Diff comes back once they stop, start antibiotics, once they stop, antibiotics, T diff comes back, and they just go like that for periods of time until eventually the body just some people, especially very critically ill people, they don't really kick it. But for people who are healthier, I've seen old. People kick it. But yeah, I've heard reports of people using the soil forming ones, and they've helped out, specifically the bacillus subtilis. And that one hasn't I haven't seen any studies on it for sepsis or anything. So if anybody has them, I'd be would like to look at them. So yeah, and then, from what I understand, there's like a there's like an anecdote about it, or old story about it. And in World War Two, when the Germans were in Africa, they were there was, like, a lot of, I think, was it cholera or some type of diarrheal disease? And basically, they were eating, they found out that the people in the desert were eating camel dung when they had gotten an outbreak of whatever the specific agent was, I think it might have been cholera. And then they found out that it was like a bacillus species, like bacillus subtilis, within the camel dung. And basically, the soldier, they'd like, patented some process. They found some process to get the bacillus subtilis, and they were giving it to the soldiers, and it would wipe out the cholera, because the bacillus subtilis species itself specifically produces the antibiotics in the gut, specific antibiotics, and so it can help to clear out specifically in the colon, where most people get a lot of their issues, because it's harder to treat with the colon, because it's so much anything you put in has to go all the way through the small intestine first and go through stomach acid and bile acids and bicarbonate and changes in pH and all this and enzymes. So they found out that those things, those things help. The one thing to be careful about is not using soil spore forming for way too long, too because they're also resistant to everything. You can irradiate them. You can autoclave them, you can you can give high dose of different antibiotics, and it doesn't, it doesn't kill the bacterial sport. So just something to keep in mind that that's they if you have, if you do develop an overgrowth of them, God forbid, it may be hard to get rid of.Jay Feldman 42:03 Yeah, yeah. And there's, yeah, it's, there's the the research in in these areas is so infantile, and so is the sort of the supplements too, I mean, supplements that don't say the exact strain that they're using, and things like that. So definitely want to be careful. Yeah,Speaker 1 42:21 just be careful. And I That's why I don't have any solid recommendations on them, because I understand. I just don't really know very much I play with them myself, but I just, I nothing that I wanted to stay taking.Jay Feldman 42:33 Yeah, well, and I know you're, I mean, your warnings were pretty harsh there as well. And I do want to say I know lots of people have used them and are totally fine.Speaker 1 42:44 I have, yeah, I've used them. I have gotten some good effects once the first time I used the specific one, like, hear something out of my gut. Like It, like, I made me, made me go, and then I felt a lot better after, but I kept continuing. I was like, okay, maybe I continued taking it for a while, and I started getting, like, a lot of histamine symptoms. And this was specifically a probiotic that had a spore formers in it, specifically bacillus subtilis, because I wouldn't take the other ones before, and it cleared something out. But they do produce histamine, and I started getting a lot of rashes and things like that. And I was like, oh, I need to chill. Yeah. So again, it's hit or miss. It's kind of, kind of hard to know what, what to do with those ones, yeah.Jay Feldman 43:30 But, you know, they're, that's why we Yeah, that's why we go the other way there. They shouldn't be necessary. And I think there are certain cases, kind of, as you said, like there's certain cases where there might..Mike 43:40 Be, like a C diff, I would try, I would try different things, because sometimes those are hard to beat. But for, for like a SIBO or something like that, I mean, I would go with some herbal antimicrobials, change the diet, look at meal timing, and then start strengthening the gut lining and liver function and things like that. And taking maybe something like bile acids or eating enough fat to stimulate bile flow to clear out the small intestine, things like that. And I would try to stay away from probiotics, unless it's like last ditch efforts and things like that. So. And I would try and also stay away from a lot of antibiotics as well, unless you have, like, a very serious situation, right?Jay Feldman 44:18 And they can be, I mean, you can do low dose antibiotics, as long as it's done properly, and it's typically better. But again, along with all these other things.Mike 44:25 The other thing I'll mention is for pro for antibiotics. If you take your antibiotics, not at the same time as the charcoal, but you take charcoal little while after you take the antibiotic, what it essentially will do is when the because the only way the antibiotic gets into the colon and disrupts the flora, largely in the colon, is if it's not really absorbed well for something like Rifaximin, but or Rifaximin or vancomycin, isn't absorbed very well, so that one will go all the way to the colon and it will clear out the small intestine. Uh, rifaxman gets inactivated in the colon because it doesn't have the bile acids there, but it's very active in the small intestine. But for ones that are absorbed, like your penicillins or your macrolides, which is erythromycin, uh, what's it erythromycin? What's the other ones? Anything you azithromycin, yeah, and then tetracycline, tetracyclines, yeah, cephalosporins, anything like that. If you take those, they're absorbed pretty well in the small intestine. Don't take them at the same time as charcoal. But if you take charcoal, like two hours after, they should, they should be absorbed at that point, and they shouldn't interact with each other. The antibiotics get ejected in your bile acids back into the small intestine as and then they get scooped into the colon with whatever you eat. It the if you have a lot of charcoal present in the colon when you're taking the antibiotics, the charcoal will bind up the antibiotic, and then it won't. It basically won't allow the antibiotic to destroy the flora in the lumen per se. And there's some studies showing it might be protective to some extent, against some of the effects or the the microbiome disruption of the antibiotic. So that's something to consider if you have a serious infection and you need to the other thing is, the charcoal also will bind up endotoxins and other excreted things from the liver that can happen with any type of infection when you're taking an antibiotic. So it's helpful in multiple purposes, in multiple ways, and that's just so that you can help if you had, like a good flora before that, and then you got some type of skin infection or something like that, and you needed to clear it.Jay Feldman 46:43 Yeah Charcoal is really helpful in conjunction with pretty much any of any antimicrobial Yeah.Mike 46:49 Just not at the same time. Because if you take them at the same time, this is very important. You will bind up whatever you're taking and it will not be absorbed. It'll just be carried out with the charcoal. So they need to be taken separately, yeah? And say that at least, at least, I would say an hour is, uh, is like, I would say at least two hours would be ideal. Yeah, that's just that.Jay Feldman 47:09 Yeah. And I think it did mention some people, anecdotally talking about using charcoal in conjunction with certain uh antimicrobials, and it may be having a more beneficial effect, but, yeah, I mean, I don't think there's any harm in trying something like that.Mike 47:25 The antibiotics, I would stay away with what the doctor prescribes, just because, yeah, you have something serious like that. Then just take the antibiotic as prescribed and make sure you take the charcoal away and ask your doctor about the charcoal, because I don't want you guys go through course antibiotics and then it doesn't work because you took it with charcoal, and then you go to tell your doctor that these guys told you, they're like, Well, now you got to take another one, and now we're worried about resistance, so we were going to change it from Bactrim to ciprofloxacin, and you don't want to take a Ciprofloxacin because it has a lot of black box warnings. Yeah. I know they're just random drugs.Jay Feldman 47:57 Haha yeah, but I mean a lot of people, I mean a lot of people have, you know, do have experience with them, and I know Cipro has messed a lot of people up. So, yeah.Mike 48:10 Yeah, those are floral quinolones I would stay away from unless you really need them. And doctors are staying away from them now, because they're they're starting to recognize the toxicity of them on number one, they have like a black box warning against tissue rupture and things like that. But yeah.Jay Feldman 48:28 Just, just the medical system we, I mean, we did a few episodes talking about some of the, some of the areas of the medical system that are maybe not as well thought through, or are there some issues? Yeah, yeah. And yeah. I mean, that's just an example, things that are used, maybe without enough research and without enough long term research, and then they realized later they were hurting people more than they were helping them.Speaker 1 48:56 Yeah, yeah. Now more prescribers are aware of it now, right? And something they're teaching in schools now that they're a last ditch option. So they want to use other things first, and especially if whatever infection you have has sensitivity to something more like a back term or or penicillin, or whatever it is tetracycline, whatever, they're going to probably use those ones before they use the flora quinolones, they're going to hold those back and those in cephalosporins aren't the same, but those are more of like the bigger guns, right?Jay Feldman 49:30 All right. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you have any questions that you'd like us to answer on a future Q A episode, you can send those in to Jay. At Jay Feldman wellness.com and that's Jay. Why at Jay why? Feldman wellness.com or feel free to leave those in the comments on the YouTube video or anywhere else where you're listening to the podcast. If you did enjoy today's episode, please leave a review or a like or comment or a five star rating on iTunes. All of those things really do a lot to help support the podcast. And I really do enjoy hearing from all of you, so please feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I really appreciate it. And to check out the show notes for today's episode, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where you can take a look at anything that we referenced throughout today's episode. And throughout today's episode, we did discuss gut health quite a bit. And if that is an area where you're struggling and you'd like some extra help or guidance, you can head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/call and sign up for a free call where I'd be happy to offer you some of that guidance as far as how you can restore proper gut health. And if you are dealing with any of those symptoms or any other low energy symptoms, whether that is any sort of chronic inflammation or fatigue or cravings and hunger or hormonal imbalances or weight gain, then head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course, where you'll discover the main things that you can do in order to optimize your cellular energy balance, which is the key to improving all of those low energy symptoms and all sorts of other chronic health conditions that you might be experiencing, and this includes what you can do as far as diet and exercise and stress are concerned, to optimize things from that bioenergetic level. So so to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman, wellness.com/energy, and with that, I will see you in the next episode.