Hannah Aylward (00:00.11)

Honestly, really, really resting your digestive system in between meals so your migrating motor complex can do its job. This is a nerve regulated function that turns on in a fasted state. So if you are drinking things all day long, if you are snacking on things all day long, even when it is a bite of something, it’s going to interrupt your MMC, your migrating motor complex. And that includes like drinking things like electrolytes or teas with honey or anything like that, you guys. Anything.

You know, one of the practices on my team even says, she’s like, anything that’s sweet, even if it’s Sevia and it has no calories, the brain is sensing this as food, right? It’s sensing this as a fuel source. So it’s best to keep all of this out.

Hannah Aylward (00:44.728)

Welcome to the Nutrient Dense Podcast. I’m your host, Hannah Aylward, holistic health coach, functional gut health practitioner, and the founder of HAN. So many people are continuously failed by conventional and alternative healthcare. We are here to do it differently. Alongside my team of functional registered dietitians, I’ve helped hundreds of women around the world overcome their chronic digestive issues when nothing else worked.

I’ve learned a thing or two about what it really takes to transform your health from the inside out, and I’m here to share it all with you. Please keep in mind that this podcast is for educational purposes only and should never be used as medical advice. Now let’s dive in. Your transformation is waiting.

Hannah Aylward (01:32.304)

Hello, hello, my dears and welcome back to another episode of the nutrient dense podcast. Today we’re going to be doing a little Q &A episode. I’ve done one of these in the past. It was well received. People love to like round table some questions. So if you’re not following me on Instagram yet, make sure that you are because I always post on my stories like, Hey, drop the questions that you want me to answer.

on the podcast episode on my stories. So make sure to do that. And then what you can also do is any other questions that you want me to cover on the podcast, whether it’s like full deep dives on topics or just specific questions you have and you want me to answer. If you’re listening to this on Spotify with us, you can always drop your questions in the comments below. Just say like, Hey, would love you to answer this question and I’ll dive into it. So I chose a couple, like a nice handful of questions to answer on today’s episode.

So let’s just go ahead and dive on in. It’s a little different than kind of our long deep educational dives that we do on here, but I think we’ll cover some really good stuff that will be helpful for many of you. So first and foremost, first question asked was, what should I eat while being treated for SIBO? And sometimes when I get these questions, I’m kind of like, what is the practitioner that’s helping you telling you to do? Because they should be walking you through all of this.

You shouldn’t have to ask me these questions. And sometimes I’m like, what are these other people doing? But to answer your question specifically here, you know, it kind of depends. So when we have SIBO, we have a small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. We’ve got a lot of bacteria overgrowing in the small intestine when the majority of our gut bacteria should be lower down the chain, farther into our gut and really in that large intestine or the colon. So we can get really like symptomatic, gassy, burpy, bloated.

heavy abdominal distension and very reactive to many foods when we have an overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine. Sometimes it’s more present in the like upper abdomen, but to be honest, I see it kind of just like full abdominal distension in many clients that we see. Now, SIBO is an overgrowth of bacteria. However, we always have to dig deeper and ask why is this bacteria overgrowing in the first place? So it’s really a breakdown in motility. Things aren’t being digested efficiently. Things aren’t moving through the GI tract.

Hannah Aylward (03:51.171)

efficiently. And that’s what is allowing that overgrowth to take place in the small intestine instead of kind of moving those bacteria farther down the chain into the large intestine. So that’s really number one. Food itself is not going to heal SIBO. It’s not going to treat SIBO. There’s one dietary intervention that can, that has been shown to be pretty effective at reducing the levels of bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine. And that’s the elemental diet. Now, yes, it is technically a food intervention, but really it’s like

a powder that you’re mixing into water. It’s not eating whole foods and you’re basically starving these bacteria. This is the only intervention that is more feasible for this overgrowth. It’s very difficult to follow in all of the years that I’ve done this. I think we’ve recommended it like once or twice to someone who is really, really, really struggling. It’s very easy to lose weight when you’re doing this because you’re basically drinking a shake in water a couple of times a day and you can eat nothing else throughout the whole time.

It can be effective, but it’s pretty brutal if I can just be quite frank with you, but that’s really the only dietary intervention. So on top of that, in order to really truly get rid of SIBO, and even in the cases of that elemental diet, if we’re still not addressing those underlying root causes, it’s just gonna come back. And then these two weeks of living on powdered water, water with powder mix, it’s just gonna kind of all be for a waste and these bacterial levels will start to rise.

and overgrow again. we always want to dig deeper and understand what are those deeper root causes. I have a full podcast episode on SIBO. So if anyone has been told that they have SIBO or thinks that they have SIBO, or if you resonate with kind of the classic picture that I’ve mentioned here, heavy abdominal distension, very reactive to fibers, lots of gas and bloating, it’s correlated with things like rosacea and eczema.

We commonly see nutrient deficiencies with it as well, like low B12 and low iron, because the majority of our nutrients are absorbed in that small intestine. So when we have that overgrowth, will have increased intestinal permeability. We will have poor nutrient absorption as a result of that. So if any of that kind of resonates with you.

Hannah Aylward (05:57.019)

and you feel like you’re reacting to everything that you eat, please go listen to my other episode. It’s like an hour, probably like a 50 minute deep dive on SIBO and I break it all down for you. So that will be a really good resource for you. So go ahead and check that out. But to answer this question more directly, food is really not going to solve the issue. Now, when we are, when we start to take away certain foods from someone’s diet, which is never something that we want to do long-term, it’s really to just try to get you some relief temporarily while we address the underlying root causes.

In the case of SIBO, the bacterial overgrowth is causing a lot of the bloating and gas. Yes, it’s causing a lot of the abdominal dissension and the pain that you are experiencing. However, once again, we have to dig deeper, but we need to bring in interventions to reduce those bacterial levels in the gut microbiome, specifically in that small intestine. We’re gonna do this through a myriad of natural interventions. We also have to kind of repair function and digestive function.

So taking foods out is not going to really repair anything. It’s just gonna temporarily get you a little bit of relief while you’re doing the rest of the steps that I’ve kind of mapped out for you here. So I would never recommend only relying on food here. Some people will be recommended a low FODMAP diet. I’m not a huge fan of the low FODMAP diet because I think people go on it and never get off of it. And the diet in itself is not addressing any of the deeper underlying issues.

With that being said, reducing FODMAPs, FODMAPs are just a form of fermentable carbohydrates. They’re in a lot of healthy whole foods, which is why it can feel very confusing for people. And also kind of like, why can’t I eat these healthy foods like broccoli or apples or onions or garlic, like these really gut healthy foods that are rich in prebiotics. So it can feel very confusing, but basically these foods contain fermentable carbohydrates that feed your gut bacteria. So.

Ultimately, long-term, they’re good for you. They’re really good for your gut. I want you being able to eat these things, but if you’re dealing with a heavy bacterial overgrowth, you will just be more reactive to these foods. So you can temporarily reduce your intake of these foods. I really wouldn’t do it for more than 12 weeks or so. And I would also really listen to your body here. So there are different apps and stuff that you can use to like pull up the low FODMAP diet, like the, I believe it’s called the Monash app.

Hannah Aylward (08:12.572)

or you can just do a quick Google and it can give you a list of foods. But I really would urge you to only remove the foods that you know tick you off because we need to customize a little bit here. If you can still tolerate some of these foods with like minimal bloating or irritation, I would keep them into your diet so we don’t reduce diversity too much because that will backfire on the health of your gut microbiome in the long run. We’ve been working with clients now. I’ve been doing this for close to 10 years and no two people are exactly the same. So

find what you can tolerate that still is maybe higher FODMAP or medium FODMAP count and keep those in if you can. I would also really recommend adding in some motility supporting foods. So we really bring in like heavier hitting agents with our clients, supplements, interventions, and things like that to really support gut motility. But there are some herbals and things of that nature that can help support gut motility. So that would be

something like ginger, you could brew a really strong ginger tea in the evening and or you could sip on ginger tea in between your meals. Ginger is a pro-kinetic. It helps to support your gut motility. So if you’re looking for really gentle kind of food-based approaches here and natural supports, ginger could be really great. Of course, you can also add that in in a supplement form, but you would want to, if you want to kind of start with the food-based approach, you could go to the store, you could grab ginger root.

You could peel it, chop it up or grate it and then steep it as a tea. Just add hot water, filtered water and steep it as a tea. And then you could even sip that with a little bit of honey or just no, no sweetener at all. And I would probably recommend doing that kind of in the evening as you’re unwinding. It’s, really yummy. It should be a little spicy. And then you’re getting some of those motility supporting agents from the ginger itself. You could buy just ginger tea, like tea bags, a good quality at the store.

I kind of like using the root itself. You could also throw ginger into a morning smoothie or throw it into a soup or something like that to get some of those benefits as well. So that’s a great food to add in. The other thing you can do is add in bitter foods. So things like arugula, lemon, apple cider vinegar, if tolerated, you may feel a little sensitive to that if you’re dealing with SIBO. And these are some other great kind of bitter agents that you can add in.

Hannah Aylward (10:28.714)

something like dandelion root tea, which can help to stimulate digestion and also help support that gut motility. So I would focus kind of more so on adding things in that are supportive than taking things out. The bulk of the work when it comes to SIBO is really not gonna be through your diet. It’s gonna be through these other interventions. We’ve taken so many trainings on SIBO between everyone on my team. I mean, probably like 10 separate trainings on SIBO, like full comprehensive programs. Everyone approaches it a little differently.

We see the best results when we identify those underlying root causes and repair from there. Some people believe that kind of continuing to feed the bacteria can help the like, if you were to use the antibiotic intervention, something like Rifaximin, it can actually help make it more effective. Cause you’re kind of like feeding the beast as you’re killing it is the theory. To be honest, I don’t think it really makes a difference. It was what I’ve seen. I don’t think it makes that big of a difference. There is also a little bit of research to show if you have methane dominant SIBO.

You can bring in something like partially hydrolyzed, gargum or sun fiber to enhance the efficacy of the antibiotic for that. But honestly, you always want to work through this with someone because it’s just gets a little, a little complex. Other kind of dietary strategies that I would take here, honestly, really, really resting your digestive system in between meals. So you’re migrating motor complex can do its job. This is a nerve regulated function that turns on in a fasted state. So

If you are drinking things all day long, if you are snacking on things all day long, even when it is a bite of something, it’s going to interrupt your MMC, your migrating motor complex. So, and that includes like drinking things like electrolytes or teas with honey or anything like that, you guys, anything, you know, one of the practices on my team even says she’s like, anything that’s sweet, even if it’s stevia and it has no calories, the brain is sensing this as food, right? It’s sensing this as a fuel source.

So it’s best to keep all of this out. I would say herbal tea, literally like a peppermint tea, peppermint leaves and water and nothing else, you’re gonna be fine. But we wanna avoid things like electrolytes or coconut water or teas with honey or sugar or even like stevia sweetened beverages. And then of course, just the snacking all the time. The MMC.

Hannah Aylward (12:41.374)

I can probably do a whole podcast episode on this. Let me write that down. It’s a good idea because I’m recording this for you guys. Your MMC turns on in a fasted state and it really kicks on at around the 90 minute mark. This is when your gut, it’s kind of like a self-cleaning mechanism. I describe it as the broom that comes on in and it’s kind of like sweeping through that debris from the, in the small intestine and moving it forward, farther down the GI tract. It’s preventing things from overgrowing. So if you’re snacking all day long, you’re interrupting.

I would say ideally we like to practice meal spacing with our clients three to four hours. Now I never want you not eating if you’re hungry. That’s not what we believe over here, but in order to make it three to four hours in between your meals, you have to eat enough at each one of your meals. So I would prefer instead of like five or six small meals during the day, I want you eating three larger, well-rounded full meals throughout the day.

to really help support that migrating motor complex function and reduce your susceptibility to something like SIBO. Other nutrition strategies here would be of course reducing ultra processed foods, sugars, things like that. Alcohol is not gonna do any good. You’re probably gonna be super reactive to this. I wouldn’t add in anything like fermented foods. would keep those out. Those are probably gonna cause big flare ups, cause you’re adding kind of more bacteria into a gut that already has too much bacteria.

And then as I mentioned, possibly temporarily reducing those fibers, but keeping some fiber in as tolerated. never want, I would never want to take out all fiber. So find the ones that you can tolerate, carrots, zucchini, squashes, potatoes, things like that. Keep those things in. If you can tolerate something like a partially hydrolyzed gargum or sun fiber, we love that supplement here. I personally love it too. I’ll put it in my morning coffee. blends right in. It’s super easy.

and typically well tolerated for those with SIBO or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Those are some other strategies that you can implement. So hopefully that was helpful for the question of what should I be eating while being treated for SIBO? But ultimately your practitioner should be helping you through this. So sometimes once again, I’m like, what are they doing? If they’re not answering these questions for you guys. Okay, next question here is what is the impact of GLP-1 on gut health?

Hannah Aylward (14:53.847)

And this also probably needs to be a full episode, but here’s my understanding. And I admittedly am not a peptide expert. I’ve considered investing into some trainings for the team so we can kind of have an idea, but peptides are expensive. They’re lacking a lot of research. GLP ones have a lot of research behind them, but are these other peptides that you’re seeing? Like there is quality issues, there are sourcing issues. There is just a lack of clinical data in humans with a lot of these things.

I’m not here to knock them entirely. I just think like we kind of need to see what else is going on. The other thing that I will say is a lot of the times people go on these peptides. Sometimes they help, sometimes they don’t like anything else. And then what will also happen is as soon as they get off of them, the stuff comes right back. So to me, that’s not really addressing anything at the root cause level. If it’s just coming right back, I am once again, not knocking all of them. We have a

Recommended certain clients speak to their medical providers about some of them different ones in certain cases Of course for people that really need GLP ones. They can be very helpful, but it’s just a very nuanced conversation Personally for anyone that has known gut issues if you have a lot of chronic digestive issues I really wouldn’t recommend them and that’s because these GLP one medications things like ozempic will go V manjaros at bound

they can impact the gut. mean, what they’re really doing is they’re slowing down your gut motility and your gastric emptying, right? So at a physiological level, GLP-1s really mimic the hormone glucagon like peptide-1, which helps to slow gastric emptying, reduces your appetite, impacts insulin and blood sugar regulation. That’s the plus. And it alters your motility, your gut motility through the GI tract. And it changes the signaling between the gut and the brain. So

We know, I mean, how it’s working to reduce your appetite and quiet your food noise and all of that is by slowing gastric emptying. With all of the knowledge that I have on gut health and all of the education that I have, I would not want to purposefully slow down someone’s gastric emptying for a long period of time. I think that’s going to lead to SIBO because SIBO is a breakdown in gut motility. And I chat about this with my team sometimes too. And I’m like, am I missing something here? Like,

Hannah Aylward (17:08.729)

Are we going to see rates of SIBO just skyrocket as a result of these things? And we’re kind of all on the same page. mean, we’re wondering what’s going to happen with these two. So the GLP ones are slowing gastric emptying, which just means food is sitting in the stomach longer. And that alone can cause bloating, nausea, reflux, burping, constipation, fermentation of the food and over fermentation of the food, which will then it’ll ferment, it will feed these bacteria and it will

you will end up with bacterial overgrowth. It can cause upper abdominal discomfort. It can cause constipation. I know people personally who can’t stop going to the bathroom. They’re running to the bathroom. They have diarrhea. Their stools are not looking very healthy. And then they can also reduce your digestive capacity. And they can also cause some strain on the pancreas and the gallbladder. So what I’ve heard and seen from some people, and of course this isn’t a huge sample size, so take it or leave it, but I know a couple people personally and-

that are taking them for various reasons and they’re having diarrhea and they are kind of running to the bathroom and things aren’t feeling good. And then also their stools are like clay colored or, and or they’re floating. And to me that signifies that there’s a deeper bile issue at play, which makes sense with the medication because it can impair bile flow and it can increase your risk for gallstones. I posted on my Instagram stories as well and I asked people or someone asked me and I was just chatting about it.

And I actually had quite a few people respond saying it created gallstones. Like my friend ended up with a bunch of gallstones, had to her gallbladder removed. There was not one of those. There were a few of those responses. So of course it’s not like a sample size of, you know, 3000 people, but this is kind of what I’m hearing from my community. And I’ve also heard a lot of people have trialed the other peptides like BPC 157 and really had no change there.

So I mean, for me, if someone has chronic gut and digestive issues and they’re always bloated or they’re gassy or they’re dealing with constipation or diarrhea, I just don’t think this is going to help for your average person that’s not having those issues. Maybe you’re fine, but it just wouldn’t be my recommendation. I would love to do some of the gut work and then maybe trial the GLP-1 or maybe there’s other things that we can use there too that can help. And I know GLP-1s are being used kind of across the board for a myriad of different conditions.

Hannah Aylward (19:26.606)

So once again, I’m not here to knock it. I think we are still gonna learn a lot about these and using them for things other than just insulin resistance and weight loss and things like that. So I’m curious to see what comes out, but for me personally, I wouldn’t recommend them if someone was already struggling with a lot of gut and digestive issues, because they do directly impact the gut and we know that. I mean, that’s how they work is by slowing down gastric emptying. And I just don’t see that being super supportive very long term.

I can, with all of the knowledge that I have, once again, I think it’s only gonna cause bigger gut issues down the line, but I could be wrong. And then there’s the whole concept of really microdosing these things too. And they have, then you lessen your risk for that. So never say never, you know what I mean? But definitely have the conversation with your doctor, talk it through. And then I would also recommend like doing other supports on top of that for your gut, because it’s not gonna actually repair anything at the root cause level for any gut issues that you are experiencing.

Okay, someone else asked puffy face causes I’m out of my moldy environment now and the histamine flares are awful. I have a lot to say about this. So what causes puffiness in the face is it can be a myriad of things. We can have sluggish thyroid function. We can have higher cortisol levels, mold illness and mold toxicity will absolutely cause puffiness in the face.

Typically, if you wake up and you feel kind of stiff or you wake up feeling puffy and you’re seeing that puffiness in your face, we’re looking at like a lymphatic drainage issue. So if to anyone that’s dealing with any detox issues or toxin exposure, like mold exposure, would 10 out of 10 recommend lymphatic drainage support. And that can be as simple as going for a walk. It could be rebounding on a little rebounder that you get on like, people are always selling these things on Facebook marketplace, you guys for like 20 bucks. So you don’t need a $300 vibration plate. I will tell you that.

Just get up, like get up, don’t sit all day and move around. If you sit at a desk, get up every 30 minutes to an hour and walk or do a couple of jumping jacks or do a couple squats. Like we have to move the lymph because it doesn’t move on its own. Unlike the circular Tory system where the heart is pumping the blood throughout the body, our lymphatic system doesn’t have that. We have to move it mechanically. So, and this is how we’re going to help to excrete toxins out of the body and remove this.

Hannah Aylward (21:35.448)

this waste. So we have to kind of stay moving. I think a lot of people run into issues here because we’re sedentary. We’re sitting all the time. I mean, I have had this is probably my seventh call today. If you consider this a call, I’ve been at my desk all day. You know, I’ve been literally it started at 11 a.m. and I’m here at 720 p.m. and I’m still here sitting at my desk with minimal movement, which is not ideal. So

I try to get up, try to, I will literally bust out like 50 jumping jacks. I will just jump up and down. I will literally swing my arms around and just get that lymph moving. Of course you can go for like professionally conducted lymphatic drainage massages. Those are wonderful. Of course they’re gonna be more expensive, but great if that’s in your budget, like that can be a great add-in as well. The vibration plate, if you have known mold illness, it may stir up things a little too quick. I wouldn’t quite recommend that. I would literally just get walking, do some yoga poses.

you know, watch a 15 minute yoga flow on YouTube and, and move your body and get sweating and all of those things are going to help. The high cortisol can definitely contribute to this as well. I know when I was living in mold, my cortisol levels were like sky high. Um, for a myriad of reasons, I was over training. was under eating. I was so incredibly stressed. And then was also just inundated with, with mold. It was a nice combo. I was feeling very puffy. It’s, well I’ll say to some of my clients sometimes,

I felt like it was like I was like in a sausage casing, like bursting out of my skin. And I was actually, I’ve really never been overweight in my life. I was probably, probably like 10 to 15 pounds heavier than I am now. I wasn’t really considered overweight, but I felt so puffy and inflamed. And it was hard because people didn’t really understand what I was saying. Cause they were like, Hannah, what are you talking about? You’re.

You you’re thin, you look great, whatever. Not that you have to be thin to look great, but everyone was just like, I don’t really get it. Like I don’t see you gaining this weight. And it was kind of this other feeling. Like it felt like I was just bursting out of my skin. That’s the best way that I can explain it. From the mold and the high cortisol, but the high cortisol can contribute to.

Hannah Aylward (23:37.47)

to some of the puffiness in the face. And then the sluggish thyroid function can do the same thing there. The other thing that you mentioned here is the histamine flares are awful. And yeah, I mean, if you’ve been living in mold and you get out, you’re not just gonna get better just from getting out. So we really need to work on detoxifying the mycotoxins, repairing the mitochondrial function, repairing the gut microbiome, enhancing digestion. There’s a lot of work that we do with our clients after they’ve removed the source of exposure.

most people are not gonna get significantly better just leaving. Especially if you’re this sick, if you’re already feeling this sick, like we need to do deeper detoxification work and there’s always gonna be an accompanying gut protocol because of the fact that mold deeply impairs the gut and the gut microbiome. And I have a whole podcast episode on that too. So it’s a more recent one and we’ll make sure to link that in the show notes below for you as well. And I really talk about how mold directly impacts the gut microbiome, the gut lining.

and triggers histamine release and all of that. And I know you mentioned a lot of histamine flares here too. Mold activates those mast cells that produce histamine. So that doesn’t surprise me at all. We have to get out of the source and then we have a lot of repairing work to do and it can take a little while, you know, usually when we’re looking at a heavy mold case, we’re looking at six months to maybe even 12 months. And that’s just to set proper expectations for people. think that sometimes we think we can feel better in like three months. If you’ve been living in a really moldy home for a long time and you’re like,

were super sick. mean, it’s just not going to happen in three months. And if anyone tells you that they can do that, they’re, they’re lying. They’re going to push your body way too hard and it’s going to backfires. So yeah, more, more to the story there, but I would say prioritize sweating, prioritize lymphatic drainage, and then work with someone to support your body and detoxifying this and stabilizing those mass cells and repairing the gut piece. Cause it’s all connected and it’s going to help you feel a lot of that better.

Are you dealing with chronic bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhea, food sensitivities, and stomach pain? The doors to my signature Healin’ Guts + Shakin’ Butts program are currently open for enrollment. HGSB is my 16-week gut repairing program that repairs the gut at the root cause level. We use functional testing, targeted nutrition, customized supplement protocols, and lifestyle strategies to look under the hood and address the why behind your digestive issues.

Hannah Aylward (25:58.278)

and then we naturally repair from there. Inside of the program, we’ll walk you through our entire step-by-step gut repairing process, and you’ll get full support for four months. You’ll be paired with a functional practitioner on my team to review your test results, identify the deeper root causes of your chronic digestive issues, and walk through your customized protocol. Inside of HDSB, we also have live group coaching with me and live Q &A sessions, so no question goes unanswered.

The doors close on May 30th at 1159 PM Eastern Standard Time. If you’re ready to finally overcome your chronic digestive issues with expert guidance and no more guesswork, we’d love to help you. You can find more details and the link to sign up and join us inside of the program in the show notes below. Okay, next question is, I require a Baitin HCL even with easy meals like rice. What could be the underlying cause? So if you need HCL,

then you’re lacking stomach acid. That’s most typical, right? So HCl is just hydrochloric acid. It’s basically kind of replacing your stomach acid. If you need it for everything, even to digest rice, like I would proceed with caution, even using it in the first place. Because I think there’s more at play here for you and it could backfire in the longterm. HCl is an intensive intervention. It’s fine in smaller doses, but we really don’t jump into it with our clients, I will say.

I used a lot more of it earlier on in my career than I do now because I know more. So I would say, just be careful. You know, we could do more damage than good there, but typically we’re looking at lower stomach acid. So we’d have to get to the root of that. Why is that? Is there another infection at play? If there is, you definitely don’t want to be taking HCL. You have to get tested, work with someone on this. And in another case, I’ve seen someone early, quite early on in my career, I saw someone who needed like seven caps of HCL with every meal.

and their functional medicine doctor just kept increasing the dose over and over and over. And let me be very clear. If you need seven capsules of HCL per meal, there is something else going on. mean, one capsule, okay. Two capsules, maybe. Seven capsules, no. I mean, we have got to dig deeper and see what the heck’s going on here. That’s not normal at all. So in her case, it was mold. She was living in a moldy home. She was dealing with a lot of fungal overgrowth, bacterial overgrowth, and…

Hannah Aylward (28:18.549)

she can digest anything because of it. So deeper digging to be done here, I would be looking at infections. I’d be looking at environmental toxin exposure and then other bacterial issues and imbalances there too. Chronic stress, nutrient deficiencies. I actually have a whole podcast episode once again on low stomach acid and deeper root causes, natural solutions, all of that. So we’ll make sure to put that in the show notes below for you guys as well to reference that one, but lots of deeper digging to be done and

If feel like you can’t even digest rice, even if it’s rice specifically, that’s a carbohydrate. Typically when people have fungal overgrowth in the gut, they’re going to be more reactive to things like grains. Oats, rice, we’ll hear that quite often. once again, deeper digging to be done there, but check out my podcast episode on stomach acid. could be helpful for you. we’ll go from there and reach out if you are looking for more testing and customized support, because that’s what we specialize in.

Next question here is, what is one supplement everyone with IBS should take? And if you know me, if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a long time, you know that it is not that simple. And I wish that it was, but we are, there’s so much more to the story. And I really don’t love giving like over generalized recommendations to everyone. So I think a lot of people do that online. I think it’s great at getting clicks. think it’s great at like,

making things viral on social media, but health is so much more nuanced than that. And I know that’s like not the answer that that people want sometimes, but it’s just the truth. I mean, if there was one thing that would fix it all, I would tell you guys, you know, and then everyone would feel better. It’s just not that simple. with IBS specifically, we have to dig deeper in and assess what’s actually causing the irritable bowel syndrome. So I do have a whole podcast episode. I know I’m like, I feel like I’m saying that over and over.

but I have a lot of episodes for you guys with really juicy information. So I have an entire podcast episode on IBS through a functional approach. We’ll make sure to link that in the show notes below. My team is gonna be like, wow, this is a lot of linked episodes, Hannah, but go have a listen to that. Cause I walk you through our entire process and like thought process and framework for that testing, recommendations, all of that in that episode. But there can be various different root causes for something like IBS. So a supplement that would be more supportive for you,

Hannah Aylward (30:44.853)

depends on what your underlying root causes are. So we can see two people with IBS. One person can be dealing with like nervous systems regulation. Another person could be dealing with a parasitic infection. Another person with IBS could have a helicobacter pylori infection and fungal overgrowth. Another person could have low stomach acid and low enzyme secretion. They could all have been diagnosed with IBS, quote unquote, but they can have these very different underlying root causes. So,

the interventions that are going to help you feel better are going to be different depending on your root causes. So I think, I think that’s kind of the best answer that I can give you. On top of that, I think the supplement that’s kind of most supportive for most people, generally speaking, is going to be something like magnesium. And that’s not, that doesn’t really even apply to just IBS. That’s going to be like everyone. And I’ve said before on this podcast, if you are very reactive to magnesium, typically it’s a sign that we’ve got other mineral imbalances present.

If you really can’t tolerate any mineral interventions, like say you add in an electrolyte or trace mineral drops and you are so sensitive to these things, we’re usually looking at like a heavy metal issue. If you feel like you’re adding magnesium in and it’s having the opposite effect on you, it’s making you more anxious and more jittery. First thing we want to check the form. You may just not be tolerating the form, especially if it’s magnesium glycinate. You have an issue with glycine. That could be the issue in and of itself. And then more commonly I’d say

we will see those with really plummeted sodium potassium levels be very sensitive to magnesium intervention. So we’ll work to replete those first and then trial adding the magnesium in again. But usually we’re waiting to do that for about at least four weeks or so. But magnesium is typically well tolerated, especially magnesium glycinate. And it’s something I love, I take, it’s very helpful for a nervous system, constipation, gut brain connection, liver detox. It’s a great, it’s a great mineral that the body

needs a lot of to do many different things. So it can be helpful for many. So that would kind of be my recommendation. But my ultimate recommendation is we have to understand what’s going on in your case. The one thing I’d say that could really benefit everyone is like stress management and working on regulating your nervous system. It’s not going to fix everything for most of you guys, but it could help. It’s not a supplement, but that would be my number one, like check your stress, manage your stress. That’s going to have a better impact, a farther, more

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like far reaching impact on the quality of your life than one supplement will. Okay, the next question here is tips for people who have trouble falling asleep at night or get a second wind at night. This is a great question and I have found myself in this pattern a lot in my life, unfortunately, because I’ve just had such dysregulated cortisol patterns throughout my lifetime due to lots of stress. So I would say when we’re seeing someone who wakes up and they feel kind of tired and they’re kind of have a hard time getting out of bed,

and then they get that second wind at night. We’re usually looking at a suboptimal cortisol awakening response. And you can even have this flipped or dysregulated cortisol patterning taking place. So if we were to run a four point salivary cortisol panel on you or a more comprehensive hormone panel, like a Dutch test that includes that cortisol panel in it, we would likely see levels lower in the morning and going getting higher at night.

which is the opposite of what we want. Cause cortisol should wake you up in the, it should help you like wake up in the morning and you want it lower at night. You want higher melatonin, lower cortisol. So then you can go to bed without like racing thoughts and more easily and have more sound sleep. So we’re likely looking at kind of a flipped pattern here, which is, is more common than we think, honestly, when people are just like so stressed. So my biggest recommendations for you, and you’d be surprised at how helpful they can be is going to be

Number one, morning sunlight exposure. So first thing in the morning, getting outside, getting 10 minutes of sun exposure. You don’t have to put your face directly in the sun and you don’t have to look at the sun. Don’t never look directly at the sun. PSA, never look directly at the sun. But getting outside first thing in the morning, give it 10, 15 minutes. That is the most impactful thing on your cortisol levels when it comes to raising them, like in a healthy fashion. You want them highest in the morning.

and lowest at night. So getting that morning sun exposure is going to help to raise those levels at night in a good way. When you look at the research, no supplement beats that. It’s literally sunshine. It’s free. You just got to step outside. do that. I, every single morning I wake up, I like get my, I brush my teeth and I do my oral care and I get my water and I get my adrenal cocktail going and I make my coffee and I step out on my balcony and I just like get, get sunlight exposure.

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purposefully to help regulate my circadian rhythm and I’ll just you know, I’ll just drink my water I’ll stand up I’ll drink my water and then I drink my adrenal cocktail and I just stare into space and kind of let my body wake up a little bit and That has a really massive impact on this. So that would be my number one recommendation Number two would be to wear blue light blocking glasses in the evening and just like straight up get off the screens which I know is much easier said than done in today’s environment, but

The blue light is really so overstimulating you guys. And it’s something that I was personally in denial about a little bit. I was in denial about it a little bit for too long. And cause I could kind of like manage and even my boyfriend says he’s like, wow, you can really look at your phone and five minutes later, you’re just like passing out. But honestly, as I get older, I don’t, it’s not working that way as much anymore. I’m, I’m aging. So.

I would say I started implementing some blue blocking glasses and I just got them on Amazon. I mean, there’s many brands out there that are selling them. Some of them are quite expensive. If you’re listening to this and you want to know which ones I got, just like send me a DM on Instagram and I’ll find the link and send it to you. I think they’re probably like 30 bucks. I almost invested in some ones that were, you know, like $200, but I had Carrie Bennett on my podcast last year and she was like, you can get the cheaper ones and have a bunch of them.

because she puts them in little like around her house and her and her kids and her husband wear them as soon as the sun starts to go down. So you really just need them to be orange or red to start to block some of that blue light. And she was saying that the clear ones just really don’t work the same way, which of course I have these clear ones that were like 200 bucks. So I’m now wearing straight up orange glasses, very cute. And I was kind of like, is this overkill? And now I’m like, you know what? I think this is actually really helping. So I avoided it for a long time.

I knew the science, I recommended it to people, but I wasn’t personally doing it, which is never, never a good look. And then I got some and it’s actually been helping me a lot. I do think it’s helping with my sleep and that like wired feeling in the evening, just less exposure to blue light. I also started swapping some of my light bulbs in my house. So I have in my living room, the one light I like to keep on, I swapped it to an orange light bulb. And then my bedroom, I swapped that to an orange light bulb too. I was going to do red cause red is like ideal for nighttime, but I was like,

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having the only lights in my house being red is like maybe a little much. So I didn’t go fully there. I swapped them to like orange, which is a little less aggressive and lower blue light emitting. So that was my happy medium. But yes, if you come into my, into my home, the light is orange. I have no lights on during the day and it’s only sunlight. And then I have the orange light bulbs in the evening. So those would be my two, my number like one and two racks, morning sunlight exposure. And then in the evening wearing those blue light blocking

glasses at night and just like getting off of your phone, the constant simulation of being on your phone, get off of your phone. I can almost guarantee you if you get off your phone one hour earlier than normal, it will positively impact your sleep. The other thing that I would recommend here is balancing your blood sugar throughout the day. So making sure you wake up, you’re eating 30 grams of protein within the first hour of waking up. This is going to help regulate your blood sugar levels for the entire day. The first meal that you have of the day.

that breakfast impacts your blood sugar curve more than the other meal. So I always say like, if you’re gonna nail one meal, nail breakfast, make sure you’re getting in 30 grams of protein first thing, balancing those blood sugar levels. Don’t go too long without eating, make sure you’re eating enough and aim for around 30 grams of protein at each meal throughout the day. That’s gonna have a huge impact on your cortisol levels and your cortisol patterning and your HPA axis and also really to support proper sleep in the evening.

because we really need to just shift that cortisol, that cortisol pattern. like decrease the stimulation, dim the lights in your home and support your circadian rhythm and then see how that goes. And there are other supplements that we can bring in too, like a magnesium glycinate or a GABA or Alfianine or glycine in the evening as well. But I would start there. No supplements are going to override like poor lifestyle habits. And finally, the last question is how to address less than optimal progesterone. And this is a really good question. And honestly, this deserves

a full podcast episode. So thank you for this idea. I’m going to do a kind of a deeper dive on the topic of progesterone overall for you guys. And I’ll try to get that episode up soon here. But progesterone is really produced after, primarily produced after ovulation. So when we’re looking at lower progesterone levels, I want to ask the first question I have is, you ovulating? And can we confirm that you are ovulating? And then I want to look in at your luteal phase and see

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When you’re ovulating and then what is a length of your luteal phase? And your luteal phase is really that last phase before menstruation. So an easy way to remember it is you can think of like last luteal. That’s literally how I remember it. And then we have our follicular phase and that’s follicular for first. So it’s like menstrual phase kicks off the cycle, follicular first, that next phase, then we have the ovulation at the midpoint, typically around the midpoint.

And then we have our luteal phase and that’s when most women get, you know, pretty symptomatic mood shifts start to happen. We can have like more PMDD style like symptoms. can just start, things can start to go a little haywire in the luteal phase when you have those thoughts of like, am I a failure and should I just blow up my entire life? That is your luteal phase. Don’t listen to those thoughts. Sometimes I know it can get really, really intense and, and we can definitely support you there and it’s really not fun, but I want to look at the length of your luteal phase. So we want that.

to be longer than 10 days, probably even more optimally longer than 12 days. If you’re luteal phase, so that time after you ovulate and before you menstruate, if that is shorter than 10 to 12 days, that’s the first thing that we want to work on. And we want to work on lengthening that luteal phase. And a lot of this comes down to like stress support, you guys. So common root causes of suboptimal progesterone, the biggest thing is going to be stress. It’s chronic stress and HPA axis dysregulation.

I have an entire podcast once again on HP access regulation, what’s happening, the different stages and how to support your body. So if you are feeling like you’re wired and tired, if you’re feeling like you’re chronically stressed and that’s impacting your health, if you are like, should I get cortisol testing or, my gosh, my progesterone is low, like what’s going on? And I’m feeling, I’m just feeling off, right? Cause everything starts to go when that happens. Please go listen to that episode. You can just look up nutrient dense and then HP access and you’ll find it. It’s a

nice big deep dive for you guys. But this chronic stress and HPA axis is regulation is one of the biggest contributors to lower progesterone levels. And these have deeper underlying root causes. So oftentimes we’re over training, we’re under eating, we have a history of chronic dieting, maybe we’re living in mold, we’ve got that big blood sugar instability piece, our sleep is poor. Maybe we’ve like had children and we’re raising babies and we’re under a lot of stress like that is an underlying.

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want to root cause as well and emotional stressors. So if you’ve just endured a big period of life, that’s just felt super heavy and stressful. You know, that’s going to deplete your progesterone because your body’s going to be running on cortisol. And when your body has to prioritize what to produce, it’s going to produce cortisol over progesterone. We call it the pregnenolone steel. And there are some varying theories on that, but the simplest way to put it is like your body, if it has to choose, it’s going to produce cortisol to keep you alive over progesterone.

So your progesterone levels will go low. And that can also lead to, you know, shorter luteal phase, PMS, anxiety, insomnia, those period flu symptoms, fatigue, spotting before your period. Those are all pretty common there. So we have to check the stress and that encompasses many different kinds of areas of life. So once again, please go check out that podcast episode because I break it all down in that episode for you. When we’re looking at other stressors, we want to check blood sugar dysregulation,

under eating, you’re just straight up not eating enough, you’re not getting in the nutrients that you need. Poor nutrient absorption can fall into this category as well. So if you have a lot of gut and digestive issues and you’re not absorbing the nutrients from the food that you’re eating, you’re going to run into issues there too. Like that could be a deeper root cause of low progesterone. The gut issues here, gut and liver really heavily influence estrogen metabolism and hormone balance. So if you have deeper gut issues, you may be leaning more towards low progesterone and higher estrogen.

And or you could just be leaning towards higher estrogen levels, which is kind of pushing the balance down or kind of off kilter. So your estrogen can be leaning higher, pushing that progesterone down the ratio of one to another, meaning your progesterone isn’t really that low, but it’s really low in comparison to estrogen. And that can be flopped to like flip flop too. So sometimes we think we’re high estrogen when really we’re just really low progesterone. So

That’s what people are talking about when they’re kind of talking about like hormone balance, right? Your hormones are doing this dance together. So the gut dysfunction and the impaired hormone clearance can play a role here too. And then the thyroid dysfunction. So low thyroid function can impair ovulation and progesterone production because of its impairment of ovulation. So this is common in women with like Hashimoto’s, nutrient deficiencies, chronic stress, gut issues.

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So those are kind of some of those underlying root causes. So the solutions for you are going to depend on what your underlying root causes are. But I would say biggest things that you can implement today, if you have not already, number one, check your stress. If you have low progesterone, you are losing resiliency and you’re running on cortisol too much. And we need to regulate the nervous system much more. Really prioritize getting into bed. I would love to see you asleep before 10 PM. I don’t know what your lifestyle is like.

But if we can have you asleep for 10 PM and really getting a good eight hours, that’s ideal. I would also say getting in that morning sunlight exposure and then making sure that you’re eating enough and balancing your blood sugar is going to be really, really, really key here. And don’t skimp on protein and don’t skimp on carbs. Like you need carbohydrates. It’s not the time for intermittent fasting and it’s not the time for like low carb diets. We need to fuel your body properly.

And probably tone down the training. If you, if you’re hitting the gym really hard, toning that down can be helpful there too. And then working with someone to kind of dig a little deeper and see what’s going on here. There are certain nutrients that are really supportive for progesterone as well. Things like magnesium and zinc and vitamin C. There’s, there was one study that showed 750 milligrams of vitamin C. I believe it was just once a day over the course of 12, 12 weeks increased serum progesterone levels. 750 milligrams is really not that much. Like you can.

If you’re going to buy a vitamin C supplement, you’ll probably get a thousand milligrams in one capsule. definitely increase your intake of vitamin C rich foods and or add in a supplement. We like whole food based supplements for those, something like an acerola cherry powder or camu camu powder can be great. Selenium, vitamin E, omega threes, all of these things can be really supportive. So I would start with big stuff, sleep, stress management and balancing blood sugar and then add in

with supplements if you need to from there. And then definitely make sure that you check out this other podcast episode that I have for you because it’s going to be a deeper dive on all of this. Okay. That’s what I have for you guys today for today’s episode. I hope this was helpful. Let me know in the, in the comments, if you’re listening on Spotify, if you like this style, like you like me just answering your questions and kind of riffing on these topics with you guys. I know I love, I love to the kind of like longer, bigger deep dives, but sometimes I want to make sure I’m answering your questions here too. So.

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If you have anything else you want me to talk about, drop it in the comments. If you have any questions you want me to cover on one of these Q &A episodes, drop that in the comments as well. And I’ll see you in next week’s episode on the Nutrient Dense Podcast. Thanks for hanging out with me and I’ll see you soon. Bye guys.