Gut Health: What is Your Best Advice?

By Dr. Melissa Gallagher, Naturopathic Physician

Reading Time: 5 minutes

This article discusses emerging/ongoing science and research. It is intended for general informational purposes only. This content is unrelated to products offered by Organixx and does not contain any representations about the performance of such products.


 

Video Transcript:

Marina asks, “What is the best advice for gut health? Supplements, foods to include, foods to avoid, how to identify symptoms of gut imbalance, best probiotics, more information on SIBO and other gut issues that can happen?”

Identify Your Gut Symptoms

That’s an excellent question, Marina. First, I want to kind of break this down cause we have a lot of questions here. The first, most important thing for addressing and assessing if you have any gut imbalances or gut health challenges is to identify gut symptoms – that could include things like constipation. Also, sometimes a situation where you may have constipation and diarrhea – or IBS, that’s a traditional kind of symptom. Bloating, gassiness, foul-smelling gas. You can also have different changes in the color of your bowel movements, and that can also lead to changes in the way your body is breaking down foods. If you find that there are food particles in your bowel movements, then those can be identified symptoms of imbalance. 

Test for Gut Imbalances

Then we can also look at labs. Lab values in terms of liver enzymes and pancreatic enzymes, if those are elevated, will indicate we have some imbalances within your gut. Then I have a lot of patients who will actually do stool sample testing. That gives us an idea of certain bacteria types that might be in overabundance in the digestive process. There’s a lot of different symptoms to identify.

Trigger Foods to Avoid

Now, you asked about foods to avoid, and that is an excellent question because there are a lot of foods that can trigger, for some folks, imbalances within their gut health. The first, most common food that you want to avoid if you maybe have some of these symptoms are foods that are rich or dense in gluten. Gluten can be an allergen and it can cause a reactivity within the digestive system, the digestive lining, and your immune response can get heightened. 

Over time, by eating and consuming gluten-dense foods, we actually will have individuals present with leaky gut syndrome, where the leaky gut, the gut lining, the single-cell lining actually breaks open and food particles, they become introduced into the bloodstream that can trigger autoimmune challenges.

The second most common food to avoid are dairy products. Anything that is made from cow’s milk or heavily processed dairy, I recommend avoiding that. The third thing I recommend avoiding are rich, sugar-dense foods, processed sugars. Sugar is not great for your digestive system. It supports unhealthy bacteria growth. It feeds the yeast and the Candida as well as other bacteria types that exist in the digestive system.

Similarly, removing alcohol, even caffeine from your diet, and then also avoiding high-processed foods. Those are foods that are in the middle of your shopping market or supermarket. Shop around the perimeter and you’re going to be making sure you avoid some of those foods. 

Foods to Include in Your Diet

Foods to include, now this is really critical. The average American diet usually has about nine to 10 grams of fiber in its full content throughout the day. Ideally, a healthy digestive process needs 35 to 40 grams of fiber. Fiber-dense foods, reaching for those adding up and moving to 30, 35, and 40 grams of fiber will greatly improve the transit time. Fiber is also going to help massage and support the digestive lining, so that’s really important.

The other very beneficial food or group of foods to add to your diet that enhances your digestive process are magnesium-rich foods. I love to get my fresh greens – spirulina is very dense in magnesium, nuts and seeds also are going to be very dense in magnesium. Magnesium will hydrate the bowel, it’ll articulate and pull in excess fluid in your body, it’ll flush it into the digestive process, helping move and support the bowel transit.

I also love adding ginger. Ginger also supports that flow of excess fluid and pushing it into the digestive process. And then fermented foods – kimchi, nut-based yogurts and kefirs, and even sauerkraut. There’s a lot of great things you can do at home. 

Supplements to Add to Your Daily Regimen

Now, the fourth recommendation I have are supplements. There are some really great organic supplements that you can add into your regimen on a daily basis. Enzyme 17 has the complete density of digestive enzymes to help your food be processed, broken down, and assimilated in a healthier way than without, and the best way to take enzymes, digestive enzymes, is consuming the enzyme about 20 to 30 minutes before you consume a food. I love that. 

Now, also the question was, talk to me a little bit about best probiotics. Well, the good news, friends, is Organixx has their ProBiotixx. That is very, very beneficial in supporting a super-potent probiotic, it’s kind of considered the super-probiotic that will help enhance and support the good, healthy bacteria balance in your digestive system.

Combining foods where you get the density of fiber, that’s prebiotics, and the fermented foods, plus probiotics is going to give you a rich blend of probiotic support in your digestive system. If you’re in need of repair or you maybe have some lining imbalances or leaky gut, I recommend adding collagen. Collagen is very supportive of repairing and supporting the single-cell lining, the structures of our small intestine. That tends to be where we have the biggest grievances or the largest grievance of imbalance, where we have the leaky gut causing challenges, where individuals have inflammation systemically, and also autoimmunity kicked up from the inability for the digestive process to heal itself. Sometimes you need external resources. Collagen is beneficial. 

Colostrum Therapy to Fortify Good Bacteria

Another recommendation is a therapy that I have specialized in, which is colostrum therapy. Colostrum therapy really re-cultures and fortifies the digestive process and brings back in certain growth factors that maybe have been lacking, or maybe you never received because you weren’t breastfed or maybe were born via cesarean section. In early infancy, we get some of these critical pre-digestive health-balancing nutrients. If you lack those or have taken an assortment of rounds of antibiotics, you’re going to need colostrum therapy to really fortify and repopulate extinct strains of bacteria.

I hope, Marina, that that was helpful for you, and please keep us posted on your journey. 


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Dr. Melissa Gallagher, Naturopathic Physician
Dr. Melissa Gallagher, Naturopathic Physician, holds a Masters in Holistic Nutrition and a Doctorate of Naturopathy. In addition to providing expert guidance to Organixx, Dr. Melissa maintains a busy private practice in Texas. Her primary focus is working with individuals addressing digestive disorders, hormone balance, detoxification therapies, and primary and secondary lymphedema cases through lymphatic decongestive treatments.

Comments

  1. Doctor said that I have enlarge Hiatus herna that’s so uncomfortable for me and when eating gluten food that caused me severe pain. I begged doctor to please write a note that I require gluten free food. Still he didn’t do it. He don’t believe about food that heals and which to afford and forced me to use expensive prescriptions that caused me so many side affects so I stopped taking those. He never talk about food to avoid and food to help. He tend to fight with me so I left him! Is there a way to reduce the size of hiatus herna so my lower part of my bra will fit me.

    • Hi Cheryl, we are so sorry to hear of the health challenges you are facing. Sending healing vibes your way. Have you tried consulting with a naturopathic doctor? They usually are willing to discuss alternate healing methods. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide health advice as we are unaware of your complete medical situation. Wishing you the best in health. Have an awesome day!

      • Ok I’m going to try naturopathic dr even while my grown daughter is against this for it won’t cover medical insurance.

        • Hi Cheryl, I totally understand your point about medical insurance. You must always do what is best for your situation. I am really hoping you find some relief very soon. I tried searching our blog posts for information on this subject. Unfortunately, tis is a subject we have not posted anything on. The internet has some really good articles on the subject as well. A lot of the articles are backed by medical research which is important. Wishing you the best in health, always! I am praying for you. :)

    • Hi Nicholas, We are happy to know you found this information helpful. We will continue to post more information like it in the future. Thank you for your support! Have an awesome day. :)

  2. My doctor is recommending organic grass fed whey protein powder to help with weight loss due to leaky gut and sibo and hashimoto. Here you mention to avoid dairy. What do you think? I know you cannot give medical advise, but overall, generally speaking is whey okay with the above conditions?

    • Hi Beth, thanks for sharing your question and concern with us.

      We suggest submitting your inquiry directly to Dr. Melissa Gallagher. Right below the video listed on the top portion of the article, there's an option to submit your question. Feel free to do so as she will be more than happy to address your concerns directly. Thanks so much for being here with us. Wishing you all the best on your health & wellness journey!!

  3. My gut is getting bigger... it's scaring me... I've been to the doctor....he said I had a cicst on my liver....I asked him can he dissolve it...it s not cancerous...I need help with this guy.... second opinion...not a comment it's a question...please help I m afraid..

    • Hi Stephanie, thank you for your question. We're sorry to hear about the health issue you are currently facing.

      Please know, that even though we cannot provide medical advice, we are happy to provide you with a link to Ask the Doc. https://organixx.com/dr-m-bio/#dr-m-ask

      We have provided special access for you to submit questions that you may have for Dr. Melissa Gallagher.

      Due to the number of entries we receive, we cannot guarantee your specific question will be selected to be answered. However, we will be providing frequent video responses from Dr. Melissa to respond to the many inquiries and topics that are important to so many of us. So please be on the

      lookout for emails that will announce when we release a new video from Dr. Melissa.

      Thanks so much for being here with us. Wishing you all the best on your health and wellness journey.

  4. Dear Dr. Melissa,

    Thank you for getting to the point. I appreciate the information that you give. Thank you.

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