DRAdrianMD on Gastrointestinal Health
[THEME MUSIC PLAYING] Hi, this is Doctor Adrian M.D. The topic I'm going to cover today is gastrointestinal health. This is a very broad topic, so I'm going to give you some highlights on the topic of GI health. Patients come to see me with various gastrointestinal complaints, whether it be irritable bowel syndrome, the feeling of being bloated, maybe acid indigestion or more serious conditions like inflammatory bowel disease. There are some general dietary tips I can give you that may help all these conditions. I see many patients come to me who have seen their GI doctor for their GI complaints and they've had both an upper endoscopy, an EGD, and a lower endoscopy, a colonoscopy for simple lactose intolerance and none of the doctors they saw told them that maybe their flatulence and bloating and gaseousness may be due to the dairy they eat every day. Despite them having normal tests, the doctor will say there's nothing else we have the offer you. Your tests were normal. But the fact is the patient didn't even need to be scoped. They just simply needed to avoid dairy. So please consider dairy or lactose intolerance as a cause of your gastrointestinal symptoms. Again, this could be gaseous or bloating or even diarrhea or cramping. This may also cause symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. So stop dairy first if you have any gastrointestinal complaints. If you're feeling bloated, feeling tired, having trouble with your appetite and maybe that you're treating too many nuts and oils or fried foods. Also, too many seeds can cause this. Now we hear everybody's stopping gluten nowadays, which means they're stopping eating wheat primarily, maybe barley and rye, and many patients feel better doing this. Unfortunately, many of the processed gluten-free products are not very healthy. Wheat is not what it used to be 100 years ago, and this is described in numerous textbooks that are out, so it's a very popular to stop wheat, which I often will promote as well. And one of the things we see this benefiting is autoimmune conditions such as arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, maybe even Hashimoto's thyroidisit. So if you're suffering from any autoimmune disease or you want to prevent an autoimmune disease, stopping gluten is one of the things you can do for this. The other thing you can do is to take probiotics. Beneficial bacteria are one of the essential things we can do for improving gastrointestinal health. They help digest food. They prevent other bad bacteria or yeast from moving into the gut. And they can improve immune function as well. I see good bacteria as being friendly troops that help protect us against the bad guys in our intestines. So that's two key things. Now many patients take digestive enzymes. I have mixed feelings about digestive enzymes. I've seen these help people and also harm people. The concern I have is if you're taking too many enzymes that it may possibly lead to leaky gut. So I tend to tell patients to moderate the intake of digestive enzymes. I have seen patients who are taking high doses for treating cancer without any complaint, so if you want to try taking digestive enzymes, you should just carefully monitor how you're feeling on them with this in mind. If you get any rashes, for instance, maybe this is due to an allergy to the digestive enzymes. So other key things for digestive health. Eating sufficient fiber, eating whole foods. If you can decrease your intake of processed foods that are low in fiber, that are devitalized, you will improve detoxification from the gut. Our body is always trying to cleanse itself, and the liver and the intestine is one of the key routes of elimination. I have patients periodically do apple diets, where they eat nothing but apples for one or more days. The apple pectin binds bile acids and it binds other poisons released by the liver and carries them out of the gut. This can improve conditions such as allergies, asthma, eczema, to name just a few. So there is much I can be done to improve gastrointestinal health. Please peruse the supplements we carry on our website under gastrointestinal, and if you have any more serious conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease or heartburn, I'd encourage you to make an appointment. This is Doctor Adrian M.D. Thank you for tuning in.
