Charis & Jenny
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Jenny: [00:00:00] If you take the stool and the microbiome from a patient with [00:00:05] both IBD and depressive symptoms and you translocate this [00:00:10] into, and these are mouse models you're gonna witness higher LPS.
You're gonna witness [00:00:15] depressive-like behavior compared to those patients that don't have [00:00:20] those depressive markers. So we know this. This has been established .
[00:00:25]
Charis : Welcome [00:00:30] back to the Harness Your Health podcast. I have a special guest today, Jenny Olsen. [00:00:35] And Jenny and I have become acquainted really through the Nutrition Therapy [00:00:40] Institute. We both have similar training from Nutrition Therapy Institute, and [00:00:45] Jenny is gonna share with us a little bit about her professional background, and [00:00:50] we are gonna dive into the microbiome a lot deeper today.
So thank you for being [00:00:55] here, Jenny.
Jenny: Thank you, Charis. It's nice to see you again.
Charis : I'm excited for our [00:01:00] conversation. So why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are, what you [00:01:05] do so that we can get a good foundation for this episode.
Jenny: Yeah. Thank you and [00:01:10] thank you for that introduction.
My name is Jenny Olsen, and I am a [00:01:15] board-certified holistic nutritionist by trade. Currently, I'm the lead clinical science liaison at [00:01:20] Microbiome Labs, and I've been serving in that role for a couple of [00:01:25] years now. And I've been working in the nutraceutical industry [00:01:30] now for about five or six years.
Before then, I was working in clinical [00:01:35] practice. I was working for a functional medicine clinic in Denver we saw all [00:01:40] different types of patients primarily SIBO, candida. We were working in [00:01:45] functional gut health, and I was the nutrition therapist for that clinical practice.
Prior [00:01:50] to that, I spent many years doing public education and e- [00:01:55] especially in in the nutraceutical space and in [00:02:00] nutrition. And I think that we went to school around the same time. I- I'm not sure. [00:02:05] But yeah, that's been the last 10 or 15 years of my life. Prior to [00:02:10] that I originally went to school for foreign policy and piano.
A lot of [00:02:15] people may not know that about me, but I did not get my start in nutrition therapy [00:02:20] and in what I'm doing now. But like many of us and even many people [00:02:25] listening, I have definitely a, a pain-to-purpose story both personally and with [00:02:30] friends and family which has led me to what I get to do today
Charis : It's so [00:02:35] fun.
I love to hear people's backgrounds and what got them into this. And I would say I [00:02:40] feel like it's probably around 90% of people have had a personal [00:02:45] situation, health story or f- with a family member or close friend or something that has launched [00:02:50] them into this space. So that's super fun.
And I think it really does [00:02:55] make our work so meaningful. We really w- want to help [00:03:00] people to really find what true health is for them, right? And really keep [00:03:05] digging. So I love that so much. So just wanna make a quick disclaimer [00:03:10] here. You know I always have a disclaimer at the end of my podcast, but I'm gonna say it right here because Jenny does [00:03:15] work for Microbiome Labs, which is a company that we are gonna be talking about throughout this [00:03:20] episode.
I use Microbiome Labs products. I use their testing products, [00:03:25] and I have just been working with them for so many years. So this is for educational purposes [00:03:30] only. We are not prescribing, diagnosing. Neither one of us do anything like [00:03:35] that really or have any interest. I tell people that all the time.
I'm not interested in putting a label [00:03:40] on anything that you have going on. We are just, fact and data [00:03:45] collectors and problem-solvers for people. If you wanna add anything to that [00:03:50] too, please do, Jenny. There's no lack of information anymore. And so that is [00:03:55] wonderful, but it can also be a problem because people are often really overwhelmed with [00:04:00] what to do.
And so what I really try and do on this podcast is give people the [00:04:05] actionable information so that they can make some decisions for themself or find a [00:04:10] practitioner that would potentially be able to help them with that.
Jenny: Absolutely, Charis. [00:04:15] And, for today I think we'll definitely be covering a lot of those practical [00:04:20] applications and steps.
But then for those who really want to get into some of [00:04:25] the mechanisms and the evidence this is also a great conversation for you as well.
Charis : [00:04:30] Definitely. So I did a whole three-part series on the gut and the [00:04:35] way that I really view the gut, and to help people view it that way f- [00:04:40] to understand what could potentially be going on with your body.
It [00:04:45] is complicated, and it has a lot of depth. And so if you haven't listened to those [00:04:50] episodes, I would highly suggest that you go back and listen to them. This episode is really gonna be [00:04:55] focused on the microbiome and going into a little bit more depth because Jenny is an [00:05:00] expert in that, and this will give you even more insight, especially if you have worked with [00:05:05] a practitioner, you have taken probiotics, you have really tried to work on [00:05:10] your microbiome.
This is gonna help you with that. So can we just talk [00:05:15] about what the microbiome is? Let's just review that why the balance matters so [00:05:20] much for our just overall health. It's not about our gut. Our gut is not [00:05:25] just living in our body by itself, right?
Jenny: Yeah. And it's a really good [00:05:30] distinction, and I would argue it's a distinction that hasn't always been known.
The [00:05:35] more and more this has been researched, and over the last 5 or 10 years, [00:05:40] we have seen so much research come out around the microbiome and its [00:05:45] specific function to where now you can really understand it as [00:05:50] a, a separate living, breathing, evolving [00:05:55] organism. And sometimes it's helpful for us to think of it [00:06:00] like that.
It makes our interventions more accurate. Even some of your food [00:06:05] choices, to be thinking about your microbiome as a, a very impactful [00:06:10] organism that is living out- outside of [00:06:15] your body but it has all of these incredible [00:06:20] impacts, benefits or otherwise. And a lot of that is informed by not [00:06:25] only our dietary choices, but
And I'm sure you went into this in your episodes, and we'll talk about [00:06:30] this in just a moment, but there's a lot of other variables that will influence this microbiome. So [00:06:35] one of the first things that gets repeated a lot, and this [00:06:40] was a statistic that came out in the 1970s from a study where there's this [00:06:45] thought that the microbiome outnumbers human cells 10 to 1.
We now [00:06:50] know that and this was ... This changed around 2017, [00:06:55] 2016, where they did discover that s- it's more of a one to [00:07:00] two ratio to bacterial cells to human cells, [00:07:05] and this can change in one bowel movement. They found that the ratio can go [00:07:10] one to one just after one bowel movement. So- While this [00:07:15] may cause us to start to denigrate the microbiome's [00:07:20] impact, what has been discovered is it's the genetics, it's the genes in the [00:07:25] bacteria that far outnumber the human genes.
So that's the more [00:07:30] compelling story, and that's really important because when that [00:07:35] was discovered is that our bacterial genes far outnumber the human genes, [00:07:40] now we can test that. We can look into the microbiome [00:07:45] and understand what is the function. What are these bacteria doing [00:07:50] for us?
We know that a healthy microbiome, and this is, something [00:07:55] that I know you talked about some of those hallmarks are going to be healthy alpha [00:08:00] and beta diversity. So this is our quantity, this is our quality of our [00:08:05] microbiome. And what does that mean? That means that we have presence of things like keystone [00:08:10] species.
A lot of us have heard of things like Faecalibacillus prausnitzii or [00:08:15] Akkermansia. These are considered keystone species. They exert this [00:08:20] inordinate influence over the host, which is us. Largely [00:08:25] this is through metabolites. So this is the end products of those [00:08:30] bacteria. If they have the correct substrate or the bacteria are fed correctly, [00:08:35] then they're able to produce things like short chain fatty acids for us, [00:08:40] primarily things like butyrate.
Butyrate is one of the most [00:08:45] common and most well understood, especially as it relates to [00:08:50] modulating immune response, modulating inf- inflammation. I think it's [00:08:55] safe to say that butyrate has been studied in the context of almost every [00:09:00] organ system in the body, from brain health, to sexual health, [00:09:05] to cardiovascular health, cardiometabolic health.
So it's really [00:09:10] important to have a microbiome that is producing butyrate [00:09:15] abundantly and producing all the other short chain fatty acids. But it isn't limited [00:09:20] to that. We also want a microbiome that protects [00:09:25] from pathogens. So we have certain species and keystone species that are able [00:09:30] to produce things like antimicrobial compounds, bacteriocins.
So these are things that [00:09:35] make it really uncomfortable for pathogens to proliferate or [00:09:40] to start to adhere to our gut lining and cause systemic inflammation, or [00:09:45] start to degrade that gut barrier lining. So all [00:09:50] of those are hallmarks of, what we're looking for in a healthy [00:09:55] microbiome.
Hopefully that answers your question, Charis. It
Charis : does. And I have had a couple things pop [00:10:00] into my mind. So I think a lot of times, and I don't know if this is just bred [00:10:05] through conventional medicine or what, but a lot of times people will look maybe at a stool [00:10:10] test or something and they see some of those pathogenic bacteria like [00:10:15] pseudomonas, different types of staph, and they're like panic a little bit and they just [00:10:20] wanna kill all of that, those bacteria.
And while that is one [00:10:25] strategy you could go about to do that, I think it's lesser talked about, [00:10:30] like how to look at the entire population of your bacteria and get those [00:10:35] good guys, the ones that you mentioned, to really overthrow the pathogenic [00:10:40] bacteria. And that is really just such a core premise, I think, of microbiome labs [00:10:45] and just the way that I look at it, is it's not just, the mindset of going in [00:10:50] and restricting and withdrawing or killing or whatever is [00:10:55] very different than nourishing the body
Jenny: Yes.
And it's safe to [00:11:00] say that a lot of a lot of providers in this space have really [00:11:05] discovered a better way, a more sustainable way of caring for the gut, where we're [00:11:10] coming in and restoring the ecology. We're [00:11:15] reconditioning and rebuilding. And a, a lot of us may understand this as a [00:11:20] four R approach, but it's without necessarily the removal step.
[00:11:25] And I can also say personally this is something that I discovered in clinical practice [00:11:30] where we were approaching a lot of these conditions in maybe a more [00:11:35] aggressive manner, and having more of a [00:11:40] refractory, some of these refractory symptoms, SIBO kept coming back. And you're have another [00:11:45] round of antimicrobials or another round of antibiotics or antifungals.
And [00:11:50] this was around 2016, 2017, and that's actually [00:11:55] when I started to really change and alter the way that I [00:12:00] approached a lot of these situations and these patients especially if they were [00:12:05] complex, more chronic. And starting to discover a different approach [00:12:10] using something like a sporebiotic first as a first line approach.[00:12:15]
And this is where I started to see much better results [00:12:20] because we know that these are very resilient species. [00:12:25] They also are very pleiotropic. They help to promote the production of other [00:12:30] keystone species of other commensals, lactobacillus and bifido species. Helps to [00:12:35] promote the production of butyrate.
But then furthermore, to your point, [00:12:40] they're very competitive. They create pathogen competition. They're competing for [00:12:45] substrates. They're producing antimicrobials. So creating kind of a hostile [00:12:50] environment for pathogens and crowding out and competing [00:12:55] so that you have this, a somewhat of a more gentle approach.
[00:13:00] And for a lot of people who were coming to our practice, [00:13:05] after being hit round after round this was really a, a great [00:13:10] approach is using this first. Now, I'm not... This isn't to say that- It's never necessary to [00:13:15] using antimicrobials. I am not opposed to this. But if we [00:13:20] can use and y- leverage the microbiome first this [00:13:25] is gonna be much better for your client, for your patient.
And so that's definitely what I've seen. And [00:13:30] we also know... We have evidence of this as well. We just we're in the [00:13:35] middle of a long-term real world evidence trial right now, and the first [00:13:40] four weeks were spent with MegaSpore. And what we saw were [00:13:45] significant improvements in a lot of areas.
So these are [00:13:50] these are observable. These are self-reported, so it's a surveyed these participants are [00:13:55] self-reporting a lot of these symptoms. But one of which is food avoidance [00:14:00] due to abdominal discomfort. So a lot of us are familiar with that. [00:14:05] And that was improved just in four weeks.
But we see a number of other markers [00:14:10] that improved that indicate that we're experiencing immune and [00:14:15] inflammation modulation just in those first four weeks. So this, these were [00:14:20] things that were not surprising to me, I'll be really honest with you, but it's really awesome to be [00:14:25] part of a company that is looking at this in a real world setting.
Charis : Absolutely. [00:14:30] We definitely talked about the immune system when I talked about really any of the [00:14:35] digestive episodes I released, but so much with the leaky gut, right? So your immune [00:14:40] cells are just so many immune cells in that mucosal layer or supposed to be in the mucosal [00:14:45] layer. And so it's... that is definitely part of the whole body [00:14:50] interaction, but obviously the microbiome is really involved too.
And, you, you were [00:14:55] talking about the keystone species. So the term dysbiosis, people have [00:15:00] heard this. I definitely mentioned it before. Can you just maybe describe it in [00:15:05] the way that you would explain it to someone, 'cause I think a lot of times people try and put a label [00:15:10] on something.
"Oh, I have dysbiosis, and so I need X." Where [00:15:15] you can really zoom out a little bit and think about what are all the i- things that [00:15:20] potentially set that up, because it is important to know, and how can I do things [00:15:25] differently?
Jenny: I love this question, and I think it deserves a lot of [00:15:30] clarification and maybe some different framing, especially with all that we've [00:15:35] learned in the last 5 or 10 years.
Dysbiosis is not a diagnosis [00:15:40] first off. It's not something that we, you have, right? I [00:15:45] look at it, this is a stage that the gut, that the microbiome is in. It's in a [00:15:50] stage of dysbiosis. This is usually characterized by low [00:15:55] diversity, low functionality. So we can look at the function of the [00:16:00] microbiome.
Low short-chain fatty acid production low neurotransmitter [00:16:05] production, or out-of-balance phyla. We have certain families that are [00:16:10] overgrown. We have, y- you can look at inflammatory markers, and this is going to [00:16:15] contribute to dysbiosis. It's a bidirectional relationship there. So I [00:16:20] look at it more as a stage that the gut is in.
Then the next question becomes [00:16:25] is this an acute, sudden onset of dysbiosis or dysbiotic [00:16:30] symptoms? Did this happen overnight due to things like food poisoning or a [00:16:35] really stressful situation? Believe it or not, lack of sleep or high [00:16:40] stress through our gut-brain axis can produce [00:16:45] dysbiosis.
And then furthermore, when you're doing your intake and when [00:16:50] you're understanding these symptoms for yourself is asking the question: How long has, have these [00:16:55] been around? So a lot of, as we know- signs and warning signs [00:17:00] of dysbiosis. They may ignore bloating and gas, and that's easy to [00:17:05] do.
Those occasionally are normal. But if you are [00:17:10] finding yourself, like I was as a child and all throughout [00:17:15] adolescence and in my college years, after every, every time you eat, [00:17:20] you are doubled over, you find yourself having to lay down you can't [00:17:25] think straight. Those types of symptoms are easy to ignore, and [00:17:30] we might medicate those or ignore them.
What happens more often than [00:17:35] not, and this is actually a study that came out couple of years ago. It was the Trust Your Gut [00:17:40] study. And they were just looking at these 60 to 70 the- [00:17:45] it was a cohort of a, a large cohort of Americans, and this was by the [00:17:50] American Gastrointestinal Association.
And they found that 40% of Americans, [00:17:55] they stop doing their routines. So you stop socializing. You may [00:18:00] not go out and play with your kids. And this is a gradual thing. It doesn't just happen [00:18:05] overnight. And eventually, your quality of life decreases [00:18:10] due to these digestive symptoms. And they also found in this study that [00:18:15] Despite this disruption and these warning signs of dysbiosis [00:18:20] really a lot of people were not communicating to their physician [00:18:25] about these symptoms.
They were just ignoring it or normalizing it. [00:18:30] So it's this stage of dysbiosis that we're talking about. The question is it [00:18:35] acute or is it chronic? And the long-term the more we ignore [00:18:40] this stage of dysbiosis, then it becomes more of a problem. And you have [00:18:45] talked about, the impacts of the gut on the rest of the body.
So i- [00:18:50] if we let this go, this is when we're starting to see a lot more of those impacts into other [00:18:55] systems.
Charis : Yeah, absolutely. I'm so glad that you brought that up. I don't know that I've [00:19:00] actually heard about that study, but really what you're seeing is that when [00:19:05] people have these digestive complaints and it's really affecting their [00:19:10] life, obviously they're starting to socialize less or maybe they don't go out to eat, [00:19:15] right?
Or go to someone's house to eat. I think people don't always realize [00:19:20] that these things are happening. And like you said, they're doing that less and less because [00:19:25] they feel like they can't manage that. I know I was in that situation with my [00:19:30] digestive issues before I went to nutrition school.
And so it [00:19:35] really is such an important part of the interconnectivity of our body and our [00:19:40] mind and our emotions, all of it, right? We are one human being. And [00:19:45] it, this is not just oh, we're gonna fix this digestive thing and then, these other [00:19:50] things will line up. It's like we really have to look at the whole person.
So I'm so [00:19:55] glad you brought that up. I think that really leads into my next question of talking about the [00:20:00] gut-brain connection, and this is something that you really are an expert in. [00:20:05] I've seen you do other interviews about this, and so I can't wait to dive into this a little bit [00:20:10] more. I set this up in my digestive series, talking about [00:20:15] how leaky gut microbiome issues, whether it's dysbiosis, just true [00:20:20] insufficiency, digestive dysfunction- leads to systemic [00:20:25] symptoms.
It doesn't happen at the very beginning, but I do think these are things that [00:20:30] people often are either told is not a problem or they're ignoring, as you [00:20:35] mentioned, and this usually develops over years of time. And [00:20:40] so I don't think we need to be like hypochondriacs and like, "Oh, I have bloating after [00:20:45] I eat this one meal," and then panicking, but just paying attention.
I talk a lot [00:20:50] about awareness and how awareness is so important and I think in [00:20:55] our culture, we're just often are very busy, and so we do shove things aside [00:21:00] and don't think about them. But let's really dive into the gut-brain axis, [00:21:05] because I want to hear about it from your perspective and these [00:21:10] systemic things that people are suffering from that they need to [00:21:15] understand that is likely maybe not always originated, but definitely [00:21:20] influenced by their gut.
Jenny: And I love that last piece of clarification there is- ... you know, it [00:21:25] wields large influence, but it is certainly a bidirectional [00:21:30] relationship. I it may be helpful to first establish some [00:21:35] basic terminology here around conditions like IBD and [00:21:40] IBS. So this is all under this umbrella of, what's called [00:21:45] functional gastrointestinal disorders.
And we all maybe [00:21:50] f- we think we're familiar with these, right? They're characterized by things like constipation, [00:21:55] bloating, diarrhea, dyspepsia dysphagia, this is trouble swallowing, abdominal [00:22:00] discomfort. But what a lot of people may not realize is that these [00:22:05] are classified as gut-brain disorders, and a significant [00:22:10] amount of patients that experience or are diagnosed with these conditions [00:22:15] also experience mental conditions like depression and [00:22:20] anxiety.
So there's a psychiatric component in the majority of these patients. [00:22:25] And so that's I think a really important distinguisher [00:22:30] here. It... I don't know about you, but growing up and even going through school this wasn't [00:22:35] necessarily emphasized, and it may have been because - it really had not been completely [00:22:40] established at that time.
But knowing this is really important [00:22:45] to how you're approaching these conditions. And we now know that [00:22:50] it's, it's not just the microbiome. We know that this is [00:22:55] bidirectional. So I call it one flame feeds the other.
So we know that we [00:23:00] can in patients that have depressive symptoms or anxiety, [00:23:05] you will see hallmarks of dysbiosis.
You will see reduced microbial [00:23:10] diversity. You're going to see reduced GABA synthesis. So GABA is one [00:23:15] of our calming neurotransmitters that the gut is able to, the microbiome is able [00:23:20] to synthesize. You'll see reduced butyrate. So some of these hallmarks of [00:23:25] dysbiosis are seen in patients with depression and anxiety.
Vice versa, [00:23:30] we can also prove this through fecal microbial transplants. And so if you [00:23:35] take the stool and the microbiome from a patient with both [00:23:40] IBD and depressive symptoms and you translocate this into, [00:23:45] and these are mouse models you're gonna witness higher LPS.
You're gonna witness [00:23:50] depressive-like behavior compared to those patients that don't have those depressive [00:23:55] markers. So we know this. This has been established in the lab. This has been [00:24:00] established in population studies. For me, I love to geek out on some of this, [00:24:05] is why?
Why is this happening? What are the mechanisms? [00:24:10] And I would say that it, it's this conversation the gut's having with the brain's having with the [00:24:15] gut, but then it's so much more than that. At first it was understood as just the [00:24:20] gut-brain axis. Now we understand it more accurately as the [00:24:25] brain-gut microbiome system, so it's more of a system because there's all [00:24:30] of these different pathways, and I like to call it, it's just, it's a [00:24:35] very diverse, Conversation, right?
Most of the conversation [00:24:40] is coming from the gut, most of it. But some of it is also coming from our [00:24:45] brain. And so it is bidirectional. This crosstalk [00:24:50] occurs through things like and I know you probably mentioned this in one of your talks with [00:24:55] the nervous system and it's one of the most well-understood pathways here is the vagus [00:25:00] nerve, of course.
This is our wandering nerve. But we also know that this [00:25:05] is happening through gut hormone signaling. This is happening through those metabolites, microbial [00:25:10] metabolites that I mentioned, not just short-chain fatty acids, but there's [00:25:15] other metabolites that are involved here that are influencing our cortisol, that are [00:25:20] influencing our HPA or hypothalamic pituitary [00:25:25] adrenal axis.
So this is our cortisol and stress response. And then [00:25:30] we also know that gut barrier function plays a really big role in our immune [00:25:35] signaling. And so this is more involved with things like [00:25:40] neuroinflammation. To go a little more technical, and you can go and read about this more, [00:25:45] but then we know that the microbiome is influencing things like microglial [00:25:50] activation.
So we don't need to go too much into that. I know that there's a, a brand-new [00:25:55] book. I won't pitch it, but there's a brand-new book out there right now if you wanna dive into microglial [00:26:00] activation. But suffice to say, I think the point here is there's [00:26:05] many different mechanisms of how the gut is communicating with [00:26:10] the brain and vice versa So given that I can go into [00:26:15] those mechanisms, Charis, but I'll let you interject-
if you would like.
Charis : Sure. No, I love how [00:26:20] you explain that and tied it together, and I think this is where I [00:26:25] often hear people kind of their eyes glaze over and they are like, "Oh my gosh, it just [00:26:30] is a lot," right? Much, yes. So it- let's talk about it maybe from the reference point [00:26:35] of someone who has skin s- issues.
Maybe it's [00:26:40] eczema or maybe they even actually see a connection when they eat something [00:26:45] that they have skin flare-ups or histamine-type symptoms or things [00:26:50] like that. And so, you know, again, it's not like Whac-A-Mole, like you [00:26:55] put a cream on your skin or you take something to manage your histamine. We really have to [00:27:00] think about the connection of these things and how supporting [00:27:05] our body to restore balance and true function will [00:27:10] influence the skin issue, will influence the histamine.
And I know I just threw two examples [00:27:15] at you, but, I wanted to try and make it a little bit more concrete because [00:27:20] it is it is challenging sometimes for people to bring this all [00:27:25] together. But I think the point is if you have a systemic symptom, [00:27:30] which is a symptom outside of your gut, so things like I mentioned, and really that could [00:27:35] literally be any symptom, right?
Or a vague symptom like fatigue.
Jenny: [00:27:40] Yes.
Charis : Maybe the question for you, Jenny, is how would someone think in their [00:27:45] mind to trace back to the gut? And I realize that could be very complex, so [00:27:50] let's keep it simple, but just the thought process.
Jenny: So think of it like [00:27:55] this. A- again, going back to we know that connection has been established. We [00:28:00] know that gut symptoms specifically often are going to [00:28:05] be associated with cognitive brain health symptoms, mental health [00:28:10] symptoms. One of the things that you can think about is, y- [00:28:15] you mentioned fatigue or even just mood related symptoms.
[00:28:20] These often are not going to co-occur right away with the [00:28:25] gut symptoms. Usually, what you might see first is, [00:28:30] like I mentioned before, ongoing ignored dysbiotic [00:28:35] symptoms that at some point you realize, oh [00:28:40] now I'm feeling... now I'm having memory issues later on. I am having trouble [00:28:45] focusing or concentrating or and these are mostly, these [00:28:50] are signs of inflammation primarily.
I'm not going out, I'm not socializing as [00:28:55] much. Now all of a sudden I'm being, I'm seeing a therapist and a counselor [00:29:00] for depression or anxiety that I may not be able to quite explain [00:29:05] from circumstances. And a lot of people, they may not, they're not connecting [00:29:10] or remembering that, oh, for the longest time, I have had [00:29:15] reactions from food.
I'm avoiding, this food. And I can definitely say even [00:29:20] personally, I didn't start making that connection until I started [00:29:25] to work on my gut. And realizing that your gut is [00:29:30] going to be a primary source of inflammation. So you've talked about leaky gut, you've [00:29:35] talked about endotoxin and intestinal permeability.
A good way to [00:29:40] test this, and this is just a way to eliminate this and to make it real for somebody [00:29:45] is if if you're fasting, okay? You've talked about fasting before. And [00:29:50] you're, you have a lot of food reactions. A lot of times people are fasting because of that. And [00:29:55] then all of a sudden they're feeling clear-headed, right?
Their mood lifts. There's a lot of [00:30:00] mechanisms for that, as we know, but one of those is you may [00:30:05] be, you may have dysbiosis. You don't have the sufficient [00:30:10] bacteria to break down and utilize the food that you're eating. And so this is when we [00:30:15] start to eliminate and reduce our foods is because the bacteria and the [00:30:20] composition and even the functionality is not breaking it down properly.
So [00:30:25] a way to make that real and to really understand that is, oh I'm [00:30:30] cutting this off and now all of a sudden my brain is clear. Why would that be? It's because of that [00:30:35] gut-brain connection. Or furthermore, if you are, starting to [00:30:40] turn down that inflammation. A good example, taking something like curcumin [00:30:45] turmeric, and you're noticing your mood is lifting.
Okay, we know [00:30:50] that inflammation has a lot to do with that. But in the lab you can also see that when you [00:30:55] induce inflammation and this is with LPS you [00:31:00] see what's called sickness behavior, and this is slowly [00:31:05] starting to not, yeah, socialize, with other people. This is, i-i- [00:31:10] in this setting you stop grooming and this is called sickness behavior.
So if [00:31:15] you're thinking, "Okay, what does this have to do with the gut?" It's all of these [00:31:20] mechanisms. And the reason why this is really cool, I find this very empowering, is [00:31:25] because we can do so much about it, right? This is why we always say [00:31:30] start with the gut, is because we know that this may not be the whole picture, [00:31:35] but we know it plays a significant role.
It's like exactly what you said before, is if you [00:31:40] can accomplish and turn down at least part of that that i- is coming from [00:31:45] the microbiome you can get a lot farther, in your protocols. It can make a lot of [00:31:50] other things a lot easier. Thinking clearly about your food choices, thinking [00:31:55] clearly about, different habits.
And when we're very inflamed and [00:32:00] dysbiotic, it's very hard to do those things. And so if we can take steps to start to [00:32:05] mitigate that it can make a lot of those other habits a lot easier to do. That's [00:32:10] been my personal and professional experience. Wha- you might share that, Corris.
Charis : Yeah. You are [00:32:15] just uh, saying basically what's on my mind.
People tell me a lot like, "Oh, [00:32:20] you're a broken record." I'm like, "Yeah, but I'm not the only one." And so it's good to hear it from [00:32:25] someone else that kind of brings it back to that. If you zoom out and you're looking [00:32:30] at your situation- Your body is built on rhythms, and your body [00:32:35] has, a 24-hour clock that it runs on.
The sun comes up every day, it goes down every day. [00:32:40] And so our modern lives conflict with that sometimes, and I think people [00:32:45] get very out of sync with that. And that is really [00:32:50] just such a strong focal point. And then to restore that, [00:32:55] you can see what actually happens. This is free. You don't need to do [00:33:00] anything different.
Literally just restoring this typical rhythm of viewing [00:33:05] sunlight. If you can view the sun go down, too. Eating on a regular [00:33:10] schedule, like eating three balanced meals a day, nourishing your body. You [00:33:15] talked about the flame or the stress inside of our body, the inflammation. [00:33:20] Yes, we want to try and minimize that and withdraw things, but we [00:33:25] also need to nourish our body.
And the fact is that our biochemistry runs on [00:33:30] nutrients, and so you have to break those nutrients down. You mentioned that the [00:33:35] gut is helping to do that. So if you're not feeling good after you're eating, that [00:33:40] is a huge indicator, right? And people just think, "Oh, I'm sleepy all the time [00:33:45] after I eat," or, "I'm tired.
I have to sit down." Those are [00:33:50] things that we should not be ignoring. So I just love the way you framed all of that. I [00:33:55] feel like it's definitely a different way than I've talked about it. But it is [00:34:00] really the similar thing. So basically, so we can [00:34:05] summarize all of this, Jenny.
Obviously, the microbiome is so important, [00:34:10] and I just love that in the last 10 years the m- the research has exploded. All of the [00:34:15] connections. Obviously, companies are making products, and that's a whole [00:34:20] thing. Microbiome Labs is in a completely different category for me regarding [00:34:25] that because of all the research that you all do and the way that you're actually approaching [00:34:30] how your products help.
If someone has some of [00:34:35] these symptoms I think having the awareness, coming up with these [00:34:40] connections, where do you feel like a spore-based probiotic is really gonna help [00:34:45] people? Because I do talk about sometimes that just taking products isn't [00:34:50] always the best, right?
Sometimes you can do more harm than good. Using a professional that [00:34:55] actually knows how to do this is helpful. But where do you think using some [00:35:00] products is helpful or comes in?
Jenny: Yeah. And that precision [00:35:05] thankfully we just know so much more about it now. Whereas prior and [00:35:10] before you're not throwing the kitchen sink anymore.
We can get a lot more precise, [00:35:15] and we can be more specific about strains. There's a couple of things that I'll talk about [00:35:20] here and bring up, and the one thing that we haven't yet, and I just want to share with your audience, [00:35:25] is It's not just that we know about these gut-brain mechanisms, it's that [00:35:30] when we're using, we're able to apply specific strains we're able to [00:35:35] see many different types of benefits that extend beyond the gut.
And so this [00:35:40] is bringing in maybe another term here, but I'll share it really quick because I wanna add this [00:35:45] to the MegaSpore and the sporebiotic component, is this is something called a [00:35:50] psychobiotic. So the psychobiome is, these are organisms and these [00:35:55] are bacteria that have been shown to influence beyond...
They're influencing mental [00:36:00] health, they're influencing sleep. And one of the primary psychobiotic [00:36:05] strains that have been the most well-studied is B longum 1714. [00:36:10] And many studies that are ongoing right now, and they've done all these really cool [00:36:15] mechanistic studies and clinical studies. But there's one that I always love sharing [00:36:20] and I love describing, where they were looking at subjects and they were testing stress response.[00:36:25]
And specifically, and just for the sake of time, I'll just share the social stress [00:36:30] response experiment that they did. And so they had subjects basically [00:36:35] play what I call... it's bas- It's called Cyber Ball, and it's basically an adult [00:36:40] game of keep away. And so it induces social isolation [00:36:45] and that feeling of being isolated and ostracized.
Which is not [00:36:50] fun. If you ever remember playing keep away on the playground I played both sides, was [00:36:55] always like monkey in the middle. But that's essentially what it's inducing, right? It's this social [00:37:00] stress. So they did that. They were able to induce that, but then you are [00:37:05] taking this oral specific, psychobiotic strain B 1714.
[00:37:10] And what they found is this was able to blunt some of the brainwave activity [00:37:15] involved, as well as the perceived stress that was involved in that particular game. [00:37:20] These are small studies, of course. It's a proof of concept study. But The [00:37:25] psychobiotic impact of our microbiome has been known for a number [00:37:30] of years.
They knew this in the early 1900s with the they would have patients [00:37:35] drink kind of a yogurt drink, and it would improve mood, it would improve cognition, it would improve [00:37:40] sleep. But now we just, we have seen that, and we have studies that are behind [00:37:45] that. So I say all that to say is because there's different settings of when we [00:37:50] can apply these different types of strains.
So we can we know that we can use [00:37:55] these sporebiotics like MegaSpore for helping to reduce [00:38:00] endotoxic load. That has been shown, and that is going to help with [00:38:05] modulating inflammation. And then we also know that we can apply some of these [00:38:10] specific strains for when we do see those gut brain [00:38:15] symptoms that are present simultaneously, right?
So we have fatigue, we [00:38:20] have mood-related symptoms, but we al- it's accompanied by some of those dysbiotic [00:38:25] symptoms, like abdominal discomfort or indigestion , or what's called [00:38:30] visceral hypersensitivity. So that's when you can actually use some of these specific [00:38:35] strains along with the sporebiotics, and you can see a lot of this [00:38:40] improvement in some of these symptoms.
So that was a little bit longer, but I wanted to share [00:38:45] that- That's okay ... particular study with you and your audience.
Charis : Yeah, so I would [00:38:50] just say quickly when we were talking about this episode and preparing for this episode, we could talk about [00:38:55] this for hours and hours, but we need to respect your time, and I appreciate you so much being [00:39:00] here.
That was just such a wonderful place to end, I think, to give people a little bit [00:39:05] more of that insight information that they don't always hear, right? And [00:39:10] so I love that you brought that up. It is the connection with our [00:39:15] mind and our body is so important, and it's really not separate.
We're one [00:39:20] whole being, right? With that as part of our core. I just can't thank you enough for being here, [00:39:25] Jenny. This was just so wonderful. I think people are gonna see so many connections [00:39:30] in their own health and we just addressed a lot of [00:39:35] amazing parts of the microbiome that I definitely hadn't talked about, so that was the whole [00:39:40] purpose of this episode.
Th- so thank you for being here.
Jenny: Thank you, and thank you for the work that you're [00:39:45] doing and for having me on. I'm honored.
Charis : Of course. I'll talk to you soon.
The [00:39:50] information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes [00:39:55] only and should not be considered medical advice. I am not a medical doctor, and this [00:40:00] content is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any [00:40:05] disease. Please consult with a qualified healthcare professional before making any [00:40:10] decisions related to your health, especially if you have a medical condition or are taking [00:40:15] medications
