The Gut-Brain axis is a complex two-way communication system between the brain and the gastrointestinal tract, where signals are sent back and forth through nerves, hormones, and immune cells. Essentially, it allows the gut to influence mood, cognition, and mental health. While the brain can impact digestion and gut function, this connection is primarily facilitated by the vagus nerve, which acts as a key pathway for information transfers between the two systems. Learn more about how your digestive system can impact mental health and vice versa. We will also learn more about additional gut microbiome testing that helps to find the root cause of disease.
Episode 37 Transcript
Welcome to Physician Heal Thyself, the podcast empowering you to take a whole-person approach to your well-being, spirit, soul, and body. Join me, your host, Dr. Ana Lara, nature pathic, doctor, entrepreneur, and a servant of Jesus Christ. We are not just a body. We are spirit and soul. It’s time to integrate medicine and spirituality into our healing. Let’s get started. Welcome back to Physician Heal by Self Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Alara. This episode we’re going to dedicate to talking about the gut-brain connection and what your doctor won’t tell you. It’s not uncommon that I get a lot of patients in my clinic with gut issues or mental health issues. So we’re combining these topics together today. I want to explain what the gut-brain axis is. This is a complex with a two-way communication system between the brain and the gastrointestinal tract. There are signals that are sent back and forth through nerves, hormones, immune cells, and neurotransmitters.
Essentially, it allows the gut to be influenced by mood, cognition, and mental health. It’s not uncommon, like I said when people show up in my clinic and they tell me they have depression or anxiety, that it’s also coupled with some digestive issues or vice versa. Someone comes in with a lot of digestive issues, and on top of that, they’re feeling down, depressed, low energy, cognitive dysfunction.
I want to talk about this nerve. It’s called the vagus nerve, and it’s one of 12 cranial nerves that are in the brain and it’s one of the longest nerves. I know there’s a lot of talk about what the vagus nerve is, but the reason I talk about the vagus nerve in its importance is that as it leaves the head, the cranial, the head, it is innervating all the way down through the neck, into the heart and the digestive system.
This nerve helps to regulate parasympathetic states. We need to be in a parasympathetic state, meaning relaxed. You need to be relaxed when you’re getting ready to digest. And so one of the things that I always explain to patients is to make sure that when you are going to sit down to eat you’re calm. There’s not a lot of noise, and you’re not angry or upset, so you’re able to pay attention to your food, chew well, and digest well as well. Usually, when people are eating on the go, you’re not in a calm state, so you’re not going to be able to break down food and absorb everything well. A lot of primary care doctors usually don’t address gut issues. They’ll refer to a GI doctor, let them take care of it, and the GI doctor will do some exams. They’ll either do an endoscopy, which is an examination from the mouth looking into the upper part of the digestive system.
A colonoscopy looks at the colon. There’s imaging that can be done. There’s not a lot of other testing that some doctors might do unless there’s something special, a specialty that they’re wanting to go after and find if there’s an issue there. But some of the tests that we do that I do in the office take a look further into the digestive system looking at the gut diversity of the digestive system called the microbiome. I want to talk about this gut microbiome. It’s a living microorganism that’s living in your intestines, and it’s made up of about 200 different species that are made up of bacteria and viruses, and sometimes fungi in the digestive tract and some are harmful to our health and some are not. Some are actually necessary. We have good bacteria everywhere in our body, especially in our gut.
I refer to these as little workers working together to help build hormones, neurotransmitters, and other things in the body. So what can affect your gut microbiome is going to be high levels of stress. So we know that cortisol will start to break up and destroy the inner lining of the digestive system that protects from anything bad being leaked into the body, lack of sleep and quality sleep. And the reason sleep is so important as it relates to our digestive system is that during the time that we sleep, our body is healing and repairing and many different processes are occurring during that time that we sleep eating highly processed and sugary foods are always going to cause a lot of inflammation and it’s just going to be harmful to the digestive system, specifically the small intestine. And then there are some medications like antibiotics.
If you have overuse of antibiotics in your life, it will cause harm to your healthy gut microbiome, right? The good bacteria will get wiped off as well. Some of the contributing factors to a poor gut microbiome that can affect our health in such a way is that if we have an unhealthy gut microbiome, it’s going to affect our immune function because a lot of our immune system function comes from our digestive tract. It’s going to affect our hormone levels and weight, we will see disease and it will result in some brain health issues. So, what are the seven signs of an unhealthy gut? Some people say they have an upset stomach, so what does that look like? Scissor gases or bloating, constipation, diarrhea, and heartburn. Those are some things that might cause some tummy pain. That could be a sign if you have diarrhea constantly or constipation, constant bloating after you eat certain foods, or there’s something off in your gut that needs to be addressed.
The second thing that could contribute to an unhealthy gut, once again, it’s that high-sugar diet. It just causes a lot of inflammation and it starts to destroy the cells there if you have unintentional weight changes. If you lose weight too fast or gain weight rapidly, these are signs that something’s wrong with your gut health. I have seen this where someone’s losing weight and they’re not trying to lose weight, they don’t need to lose weight, and there’s a lot of bloating and diarrhea. Immediately when I hear that, I think parasites and we’re going to talk about that later on. If you are unintentionally losing weight, there might be parasites there. You should take a look at that.
Signs of an unhealthy gut. It is going to be if your sleep is off, so you’re having sleep disturbances or you’re constantly fatigued if you have skin irritation. Sometimes skin issues are actually a gut issue. I know people want to put all the topical lotions and different treatments on the skin, but I always tell people who come in with skin irritation like eczema or any kind of dermatitis that you need to take a look at the gut. Even if you have acne, or cystic acne, you want to look at the gut. A lot of people ask me, Ana, what do you do on your skin? It looks good. I’m like, I don’t do a whole lot to my skin. It’s what I’m eating. What you eat is going to contribute to skin health. So you need to make sure you have good healthy gum. If you have autoimmune conditions.
This is linked to unhealthy gut issues. You always want to make sure that you’re cleaning up the diet and you’re giving things to your body that are going to help to heal and repair the digestive system. This is one of the key things with autoimmune conditions that I see is people are running after the symptoms, the fatigue or the joint pain or whatever is going on, a hair loss maybe, but they’re not addressing the deeper root of it, which is gut health. You got to help to heal the gut. Sometimes if you have food intolerances, this could be a sign that you have an unhealthy gut. So there are a lot of tests that check for food intolerances and they’re great, but sometimes it’s not the food that’s causing the problem. It could be that your gut is just off. I joke around with my patients, but I’m serious when I say that If you are under high chronic levels of stress, it is going to affect your gut health. I’s the equivalent of eating a cheeseburger, fries, and coke. It will cause an inflammatory destructive reaction in the gut. So some of the common things that I see digestive-wise in my practice, especially as it relates to mental health, is when someone comes in and they are telling me they need help with depression or anxiety, I’m doing a full, thorough assessment of what’s going on with him.
How often are they having a bowel movement? Are they having any bloating, gassing diarrhea, constipation, or abdominal pain? Are they sleeping? Are they able to sleep or fall asleep? Well, what is their stress level like? Are they exercising or not? When I evaluate blood work, I look at vitamin D levels, other inflammatory markers, hormones, and thyroid health. I rule out everything to see if this person’s condition is depression or anxiety. If it’s a psychological thing, is it something in their personal life relationship that might be causing them to be depressed or is there something physical or physiological that’s contributing to their symptoms? Remember, depression and anxiety don’t just show up. There’s something that led the person to get to this point. And if your gut is not healthy, then it can contribute to mental health issues. And on the flip side, if your social life, if there’s something socially in relationships that is going on that is really disturbing your peace and is constantly putting you under stress, it is going to be destructive to the rest of your body, especially your gut health.
It’s like, what came first, the chicken or the egg? We have to dig deep down and find out what that person is going through. If you are having digestive issues, you might want to assess when this first started in your life and what was going on at that time. Sometimes, people will say, I’ve been having digestive issues since I was eight years old. Well, what was going on in your life around that time or leading up to that time? So they go back into this journey, and they start to see and assess that there was a lot more that they were not paying attention to or were aware of that led them to this point. There were maybe some traumas that happened that after that point, they started having gut issues. Children are so sensitive to stress. This is how I tell parents that I know that if your child’s digestive issues are not because of their diet, there’s something that happened. If it’s not something that happened at home, it might be something that happened at school, something that was traumatic, or a stressor they’re experiencing. And so these are sometimes, this is one of the ways that we know if a child has been abused is because they will start to have digestive issues, even if it’s just my tummy hurts.
They don’t have the words, they don’t have the vocabulary to explain how they feel their symptoms, but it’s showing up. So other things that I see in my practice, very common with digestive issues, are people with autoimmune conditions. So this is why we start to look at the diet with all people, regardless of what they’re coming in for. What are they eating? What are the foods that they are reacting to? Start eliminating the foods that are problematic, such as the high-inflammatory foods. I did a whole episode on that, on foods that are high in inflammation and that you should avoid. And so we start to do that. We start to eliminate these foods and start eating the helpful foods and start giving the body what it needs so that the gut health is compromised. But other things, cancer as well. We have to make sure that their gut health is optimal.
It’s very difficult when people have cancer. They’re doing the chemo and the radiation because these medications oftentimes leave them nauseated, and they’re vomiting and so eating, they just have no desire to eat. But we still have to encourage them to eat in small amounts and eat the right foods to help their gut health. Constipation and diarrhea are very common digestive issues that I see in my practice. Sometimes, I get people that have had ongoing diarrhea for years, and they’ve gone to the primary care, they’ve gone to digestive doctors, GI doctors, and everything’s normal. But this is where I want to talk about the type of tests that I do. It’s called a gut zoomer test. Other specialty tests are similar, but these tests look at gut diversity. The good bacteria impact everything in our body: hormones, heart health, autoimmune conditions, etc.
It has digestive inflammatory markers. We want to know where in the digestive tract there is some inflammation. Is there some compromise there? We are looking at digestive insufficiency and malabsorption. Is this person absorbing, digesting, and absorbing fats in foods, carbohydrates, and proteins? Well, so this is a stool test. The patient collects it at home and sends it to the lab and through the stool, the lab can assess if they’re digesting proteins, carbs, and fats well. And if they’re not digesting it well, then we know they’re not absorbing it because it’s leaving through the feces. It can also let us know if they need enzymes to help break down these foods or what else we can give them to support them in digesting foods. Because if you cannot break down the food, right, and the body, the intestines are not able to absorb it, then you’re nutrient deficient.
This is where I find that people who supplement with vitamin D are still low because they have a gut issue. The absorption happens in the gut, the activation happens in the kidneys, and the liver has a whole process in that, too. I want you to understand that the liver, the pancreas, the kidneys, the small and large intestines, the stomach, and the esophagus from mouth to the end, are all part of the digestive system. We are assessing that full system. And what’s going on This test will also let me know if there’s intestinal permeability. And what that means is, is there anything leaking into the gut that should not be leaving the gut? And where does it leak into? Great question. It’s leaking into your bloodstream. And this is why someone with a leaky gut will have food sensitivities.
Doing the food sensitivity test doesn’t make so much sense. Doing a gut test like this makes more sense, as it will let me know if that person has a leaky gut. Most likely, that’s going to explain why they have so many food sensitivities, even in healthy foods. I’ve had people who are sensitive to broccoli, carrots, and just the random things that are healthy and good for you. They shouldn’t be sensitive to those foods. If you’re sensitive to gluten, it could be a gut. It is a gut issue. This test also looks for pathogens. So we have good bacteria, but this looks for the bad bacteria. It looks at viruses and fungi and parasites. And you know what? I have seen it all. I have seen people come in with bacteria in their stool, so we must eliminate their overgrowth.
If there’s a live virus that is impacting them, that’s showing up in the stool, it’s not just the blood, it’s showing up in the stool, then we know this person either has a chronic exposure to a virus that’s active or they recently were exposed to something that’s affecting them still. I’m sure many of you keep hearing about parasites on social media and podcasts. Some doctors have gone to the extreme of saying Everybody has parasites. And I wouldn’t assume that you have a parasite and then start doing parasite detoxes because there are different types of parasites, and each parasite is detoxed differently as well. So I do see this as one of those cases where if someone comes in with chronic ongoing diarrhea, I’m going to do this test, and nine out of 10 times, there is a parasite present.
Then, there are natural ways that we would go about detoxing that person. If it’s a parasite that’s pretty in-depth, that’s extensive, then I might use medication for that. It just depends on the person what they want to do also. These tests can be very helpful because they also let us know if they have different categories when looking at gut diversity and good bacteria. One of those concerns is mental health. If the good bacteria contributing to our cognitive and mental capacity are low or too high, then we know which probiotics we need to give the person. There are different types of probiotics, which all do different things in the body. So we want to make sure that we know what good bacteria is present, what’s high, and what’s slow.
If you’re having issues with either of these two or both, there’s most likely a connection and even a little bit further because we know how trauma and stress do on our bodies. Usually, people with trauma have these issues: they have gut issues, and there are cognitive or depression and anxiety issues. I just wanted to touch a bit on the gut-brain connection and some of the things your doctor won’t do. Just know that there are extensive gut microbiome tests that you can do that are very helpful to assess your gut health fully. If you’re interested in learning more about these tests and how I can potentially help you, feel free to reach out, visit my website and schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation to see how it relates to you, particularly to you, and how this might affect you. Until next time, guys, be blessed. Thank you for listening to Physician Heal Thyself, the podcast. If you like what you’ve heard, please like, share and subscribe, help this message, and reach more people who may need to hear it. Leave your comments. I want to know what you think. If you’re interested in learning more about Raices, visit our website. Until next time, be blessed.