Ep 151: The Surprising Link Between Gut Health, Fat Loss, and Body Composition with Josh Dech
How do gut bacteria affect your metabolism, hormonal balance, inflammation, and overall physical performance? What foods and nutrients can nurture a healthy gut microbiome to enhance fat loss and improve body composition?
In this episode, Philip (@witsandweights) speaks with Josh Dech, an ex-paramedic and Holistic Nutritionist specializing in gut health. They explore the complex, often misunderstood link between gut health, fat loss, and body composition. They bust some common myths and highlight strategies for maintaining gut health and giving it the attention it deserves.
Josh, also the host of ReversABLE: The Ultimate Gut Health Podcast, knows all about the connections between your gut and the rest of your health, body, and mind. And it was the successes his clients have had with complex digestive diseases, previously thought to be impossible, that got him connected to some of the world’s most renowned doctors. Josh has been recruited to the Priority Health Academy as a medical lecturer, helping educate doctors on a holistic approach to gut health.
Get an EXCLUSIVE bonus interview with Josh on home gut health tests, pre/probiotics, the connection between gut health and urinary tract infections in women, and more. Click here: https://witsandweights.com/bonus
Today, you’ll learn all about:
2:15 Personal connection to gut health
4:41 Gut bacteria and its impact on hormones
7:19 The role of gut bacteria in weight loss
12:06 Gut microbiota imbalances and hormonal disruptions
13:57 Factors altering gut bacteria and strategies for a healthy gut
16:09 Gut health, imbalances, and inflammation
21:36 Strategies for a healthy gut bacteria
25:29 Nutritional principles and gut repair
27:08 Food choices and nature's influence
31:52 The role of fiber, pre/post/probiotics
38:20 Intuitive eating
41:54 Effects of exercise on gut bacteria
43:24 The question Josh wished Philip had asked
45:29 Where to learn more about Josh
46:18 Outro
Episode resources:
ReversABLE: The Ultimate Gut Health Podcast - reversablepod.com
Website: The Gut Health Solution – gutsolution.ca
Facebook: @joshdech.health
IG: @joshdech.health
As the wellness industry continues to expand, new revelations about the human body emerge, shifting paradigms and challenging long-held beliefs. Among these, the role of the gut microbiome in health has sparked a revolution, attracting the attention of holistic nutritionists like Josh Dech. In a recent podcast episode, Josh explores the intricate relationship between the gut microbiome, weight management, and cognitive function, providing a new perspective on well-being.
Our gut microbiome is an invisible universe teeming with life. Comprising trillions of bacteria, this complex ecosystem is integral to our metabolism, immune system, and even our moods. Dech highlights the importance of nurturing this delicate balance through dietary choices and lifestyle habits. But it's not just about what we consume; it's understanding how each individual's unique bacterial blueprint can influence their overall health.
The discussion extends to how imbalances in the gut microbiome can lead to inflammation and a cascade of health issues. Josh sheds light on the 'silent saboteurs' within our gut that may manifest as skin conditions, autoimmune diseases, and mental health challenges. These revelations underscore the potential for a more personalized healthcare approach, one that caters to the individual complexities of the microbiome.
In the realm of weight loss, Josh debunks the calorie deficit myth by examining an experiment with mice that suggests our gut bacteria could significantly impact our ability to shed pounds. He posits that perhaps it's not just about the calories in versus calories out but also about the state of our gut health. This groundbreaking insight could transform the way we approach fat loss and metabolism.
Furthermore, Josh discusses the significance of early life factors, such as childbirth method and breastfeeding, in establishing a robust gut microbiome. These early interactions with bacteria lay the groundwork for future health, influencing our susceptibility to diseases and our ability to maintain a healthy weight.
Building a strong immune system, Josh explains, involves not only nurturing the gut but also avoiding substances that harm it, such as alcohol and environmental toxins. He emphasizes that prevention is key and that by making healthier choices, we can strengthen our body's natural defenses.
The conversation doesn't stop there. Josh delves into the role of prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics in digestive health, using analogies to simplify these complex concepts. He stresses that not everyone needs prebiotics and that certain probiotic strains can be strategically employed to address specific health concerns.
Physical activity is another piece of the puzzle, with Josh explaining the bidirectional relationship between exercise and gut health. Physical activity promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria, enhancing immune function and potentially leading to a more favorable body composition.
As the episode concludes, listeners are left with a wealth of knowledge on how to achieve optimal health through understanding and supporting their gut microbiome. Josh’s insights from his podcast 'Reversible' serve as a testament to the power of the gut in shaping our fitness and cognitive clarity.
The conversation with Josh Dech is more than just a discussion; it's a transformative lesson in health and well-being. The gut microbiome's role in our lives is profound, and by embracing these insights, we can embark on a journey to not only better physical health but also mental and emotional well-being.
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Transcript
Josh Dech 00:00
Many of us are overfed but undernourished. And so we're seeing a lot of these things coming through. So you just have to give your body the tools, remove the things causing the problem, and it has the ability to heal itself. Right? Headaches are not a byproduct of aspirin deficiency. Pray there's something else going on. And that's what we have to look at. Here it is, where's your body? What's blocking it from doing this job?
Philip Pape 00:23
Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights Podcast. Today I'm speaking with Josh Dec. in X paramedic and current holistic nutritionist who specializes in gut health. I wanted to bring him on the show to explore the complex and often misunderstood link between gut health fat loss and body composition. Specifically, how does gut bacteria affect your metabolism, hormonal balance, inflammation, and overall physical performance? What specific foods and nutrients can nurture a healthy gut microbiome to enhance fat loss and improve body composition. And as always, we'll bust some common myths. And we'll highlight practical everyday strategies for maintaining gut health and giving it the attention it deserves in your routine. Josh, who is also host of reversible the ultimate gut health podcast, go subscribe and follow right now. That's reversible. The ultimate gut health podcast knows all about the connections between your gut and the rest of your health, body and mind. And it was the successes his clients have had with complex Digestive Diseases, previously thought to be impossible, that got him connected to some of the world's most renowned doctors. Since then, he's been recruited to the Priority Health Academy as a medical lecturer helping educate doctors on a holistic approach to gut health. And he will definitely educate you and me today, as we dive into the surprising link between gut health fat loss and body composition. Josh, welcome to the show. Philip, it's
Josh Dech 02:12
a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.
Philip Pape 02:14
As we talked about before we started recording, this is the first deep dive we'll be doing into gut health. So I know the listeners are excited for all about it. And just so that they understand your expertise in this area, just tell us why gut health in particular appealed to you in the context of holistic health.
Josh Dech 02:30
It truly wasn't it's one of those things that was actually love at first sight. You know, I used to be a paramedic and I was in the reactive health care space, I want to do more proactive and really help people change the lives where I do now. And so it was just very, very different. When, in long and short after chain of events was at a trade show, I heard somebody speaking from a holistic nutrition school about the gut and gut biome. And I heard that I said, that isn't I'm going to do for the rest of my life. So I started saving up and I went back to school, and I've been hooked ever since. We talked about the importance. And I'll tell you as kind of a quick overview, we can dive into this one, Phillip more if you'd like. But our guts, I argue our gut and our gut microbiome is it's a bacteria community living inside of our gut, I argue they're more important than our DNA, at the very least as important. Because if you think about it, we have 23,000 genes in the human genome, right? That make up a human being, we have over 3 million genes inside your gut bacteria. So they are vast in number they outnumber your own body cells 10 to one, they do everything for you from detoxification, to hormone balancing to producing vitamins in cellular health and immune response. And they determine how socially we feel like being and what diseases you will not get. They are everything. And it's one of the most fascinating emerging sciences that I've ever seen.
Philip Pape 03:49
Yeah, I was gonna say when he first started saying you fell in love with it, it was like, people don't see it as a sexy topic, so to speak. Right. But when you really get into it, I mean, you're speaking to me from what the science and kind of engineering background of and I've talked to my girls about this before, we have more bacteria in our body like, well, more bacteria than our body than anything else. Just effectively walking. Hosts, right.
Josh Dech 04:12
Yeah, I mean, the question is, are you you? Are you more microbes? Right? You probably were like Pigpen you know, from Charlie Brown, this dust cloud of microbes pulling around us and following us everywhere. It's it's really wild. Yeah,
Philip Pape 04:24
and especially that it affects so many different things. One of the parallels is we talk a lot on this show about building muscle and I've come more and more to believe that muscle is the center of of so many metabolic diseases and health issues we have even more than than weight management right and so I kind of hammer home that message. I like your message here that maybe gut health itself can have a profound you know, cascading effect on everything else. I want to get into that and the audience here listens to the show specifically cares a lot about body composition and fat loss and building muscle and that kind of thing. So we don't necessary have to get into every single facet of of health. But how does it directly impact those things, you know, body composition hormones, maybe, maybe appetite satiety, those kinds of things?
Josh Dech 05:09
Well, probiotics, right be a bacterium living inside of your gut or oral probiotic supplements you take, they work as signaling messengers. So they have all kinds of stuff we're still truly learning about, there are trillions, but 100 trillion bacteria inside of your gut. And we're still just learning about most of them, we really have really firm studies on about 100. These are the ones we can really see inside GI maps, we're exploring different things with different genus and species. But it's all very rudimentary stuff in the grand scheme of it, we're talking as rudimentary as you know, bacteria knowledge really, in contrast would have been in the 1800s, when we just discovered that they exist, right? We haven't even discovered really, the use of the biome started becoming a thing back in the late 80s, early 90s. And understanding the gut and gut bacteria. So it's really quite complex. And unfortunately, the truth is Philip, we don't fully understand how the gut bacteria relates to weight loss, but we do know some. So there are certain strains, for example, that influence inflammation, hormonal balancing, insulin and carbohydrate metabolism. A really big one popular in media right now is akkermansia. And that's when we do see quite a lot in that, again, helps dozens and dozens of benefits for that one specific strain. But I'll give you an interesting anecdote. And effectively, the study concluded that it helps but we don't know why. So researchers actually gave mice a heavy dose of antibiotics to wipe out the gut bacteria, right, they wanted to test the effects of calorie deficits or calorie restricted diets to see what they lose weight. So in the control mice, right, that was a healthy, untouched gut bacteria. They found calorie restriction, of course, like anybody else, reduced body weight, and it had tons of benefits to their gut and gut biomes that increase their growth of beneficial bacteria, of course, growth hormone and muscle retention, all the things you typically see from having a caloric deficit or from fasting. But in the mice who are given antibiotics, they flushed out as much bacteria as they could from their gut, they didn't get the same benefits from calorie restriction, weight loss was either fully restricted or limited. And so they really effectively lead to the conclusion that our gut bacteria have a direct role in weight loss, right? So it begs the question, like if your bacteria is damaged, can you still lose weight? And so to reference another study, they fed obese mice Because mice eat poop, right? That's just the facts. I'm talking about eating feces, I'm not saying you guys should eat most poop. What they did is they gave these mice, they fed the obese mice, diets that were mixed with feces from lean healthy mice, and the obese mice were able to lose weight effectively. And on the flip side, right? lean mice are given bacteria from obese mice, and they are more prone to weight gain. And so it just goes to really show our gut bacteria have a major role in weight loss. And so they don't really understand fully how it works. But we know that it does work. That's something we're still exploring. But the studies really indicate like it has a role in the food reward system and all kinds of stuff for compulsive eating, and no dietary driven behavior. So there's lots of really amazing connections there.
Philip Pape 08:07
So I want to explore that, right? Because I I fully subscribe to the idea that we don't have to know why things work always to understand that they work, especially when they're very complex. Like even when it comes to why how muscles respond to a stimulus and grow it. We're still trying to figure that out. So when you talk about the the mice experiment, is this an isocaloric? Experiment, like both are fed the same calories, there's ad libitum, like they get to eat whatever they want to be referred the
Josh Dech 08:35
same. So they're identical diets. It's okay idea is if we want to compare, of course, right, any comparative analysis has to be as identical as possible on both sides to produce as many complicating factors or restrictions as possible. And so that's what they done, they gave them the same diets the same calorie deficit the same everything and found that the disruptive bacterium did not lose weight, which, besides the obvious, right food and insulin and 60% of you know, America being considered type two diabetes, or prediabetes. We can actively see all the food and all the things that 17,000 plus pesticides how they actually disrupt our gut microbiomes and lead to disease processes. In that way alone, I believe that's a large contributor to the obesity crisis.
Philip Pape 09:16
That makes a lot of sense. And I want to poke at that one more, one more level, because when I hear that the deficit was the same, I would challenge that in the wording because I imagine that there was the reason they didn't lose weight was because they couldn't maintain the same deficit in those mice. Because the other side of the equation probably probably decreased right them a tablet, I gotta, I gotta imagine their their expenditure came down. And that was why they couldn't lose weight, right? Because we know energy balance is what it is.
Josh Dech 09:41
Well, you're right. So there would be some complications there. Right? For example, if the mice were bloated, having pain they might lay around more, they might not be as active or as energetic. So definitely, that's a factor that it comes part and parcel with altering any microbiota, right? I specialize in Crohn's and Colitis, and those people are some of the most fatigued, drained exhausted people. You In medicine next to cancer patients actively going through chemo. So those are the factors we can't control. But if we even look at just testing, you know, a BMR, or an RMR, we can see a lot of congruence in there as well. So you're very, very right to state that Phillip because is it the only factor? No. Is it a major playing factor in the overall outcomes at the end? Regardless of its mechanism and pathology? Yes,
Philip Pape 10:21
yeah, it's important for people to know because then then they understand what the MEK it's kind of like sleep right? When you look at sleep deprivation studies. And we know that it increases hunger, and can lead to more consumption. But in studies where they've controlled the calories, it also leads to differences in weight loss, but that's because the expenditure has changed for the sleep deprived group, right, they're there, their body compensates. So I was just curious about that. So you're saying we don't really know the mechanisms per se. And part of that is because there's a lot to work, a lot of work to be done. And you said, we only understand 100 species out of 100 out of a trillion or 100 trillion. What was that? So
Josh Dech 10:55
we have roughly estimate, say, between one and 2000 different species, seven to 9000 strains, some estimates are now saying two to 4000 species it's ever evolving at this stage, we've really scratched the surface. But even if we take the one or 2000, with seven to 9000 strains, we can multiply it out to say there's 18 million different bacterium multiplied out into about 100 trillion different individual bacteria within the gut. And so we look at that that's sort of when we say we only know 100. I say that because it's what we test for. So we use gi mapping, which is a stool sample, which I'm sure you're familiar with, and maybe many of your listeners are, it's a GI sample or stool sample, we sent to a lab for analysis with a give us a cultural count of all the bacteria individually, either their species, umbrellas, like all lactobacillus or Bifidobacterium. Or there are some other tests that can really break them down by individual genus, so you can see the strains of each individual and what's lacking. And so with those, again, we maybe see upwards of 100 different genus of bacteria on these tests. And that's it, we can actively test or have some sort of ability to intervene on via supplementation, probiotics, or probiotics, those types of things. Okay, so
Philip Pape 12:06
then, is there a set of profiles or an ideal profile? Where we maybe a balance of the certain species that we're going for in most humans? Or is it highly individual? And then how does that balance affect some of this, for example, hormonal disruptions? You know, what I'm asking? Yeah.
Josh Dech 12:23
So we look at reference ranges, the thing is about lab testing is pretty arbitrary, for the most part, right? We know this, because look, for example, at blood labs, right, I'm sure you've seen your fair share of blood labs or steady blood work over time. And those reference ranges are based on a population where 90 plus percent of people are not metabolically healthy, they're actually very sick. And so what we're considering normal is far from optimal. And the challenge further with these lab tests, this is just the truth of them. They're useful tools, but often nondiagnostic is that you only need for adults 120 different reference points to create lab reference ranges for this test, we can say 120 people, maybe they have sick bacteria, maybe they don't. And so you and I fill up as total strangers share approximately 99 to 99.9% of our DNA, right? Never met total strangers, we share only 20 to 30% of the DNA of our microbiome. And so we look at these reference ranges for me, I'm not looking to get people ideally at back in the green if you're on the red, you're not detectable, that's a problem. But you know, dealing gut and gut health and gut disease, I look at these reference ranges is exactly that the references, but oftentimes we use them to try to clinically diagnose right now if you detect pathogens, salmonella, you know, type of pathogenic strains of E. coli, Clostridium difficile, we can see those go okay, yeah, this person is very ill they have an infection of those parasites. But what reference ranges are ideal for that person's physiology? I'd say still, to this point, looking at probably, you know, two dozen GI maps a month. I think it's a crapshoot, no pun intended.
Philip Pape 13:56
So is there a baseline you can establish for an individual then when they're young that would that would tell you that are like right out of the womb, you already have this big divergence?
Josh Dech 14:03
Yeah, so I'm not going to give your listeners anything useful here. So unfortunately, it's really building an awareness around what it means. But here's the deal. When we're born again, we have such a variety of different species and strains. And that depends largely on what's consumed, how active we are your bacteria, right? If you're vaginally born versus C section, dramatically different because you're actually inoculated covered head to toe. Even orally, you'll get some of that in you. If you look at bottle fed versus breastfed, we know the incidence rates for SIDS or sudden infant death syndrome is twice as high from a meta analysis of 19 or 20 Different studies, it's twice as high for babies who are bottle fed than those who are strictly breastfed. And so we know these microbes have a role to play the nutrients that come from it. If you look at, for example, people who grew up on farms versus those who live in apartments in New York City, very different microbes and microbial diversity or variety of bacteria that live inside the gut. So it's all about exposure, getting outside playing with animals, letting them lick your face playing in the dirt touching, you know, grass and food and natural things. And that's how we develop variety. The challenge is, again, the baseline we might get from a baby to answer the original question, can you get a baseline when you're born? Well, that thumbprint so to speak, that blueprint of mycobacteria, that microbiome DNA actually sets in differently for each person, but it really establishes around four years old plus or minus a year. And so we could take it from there. But then the question is bottle fed, breastfed hold, raise playing outside helicopter parents? What kind of food? What kind of diversity is a child picky? All those things matter? And so it's such a, unfortunately, well, I'll say fortunately, unfortunately, fortunately, we know enough about it, we can take action on a lot of these things. And I use gi mapping and almost every Crohn's Colitis patient that I see, the unfortunate part is that it's such a wide array of variables for missteps, or, you know, Miss judgment or misdiagnosis, it really is impossible to say here is our answer. Here's the definitive line, because there's way too much variety, and we're dealing with trillions, we probably won't know for another 100 years.
Philip Pape 16:09
Okay, good. So we've established that. So now we can maybe take the bigger picture approach of, first of all, I do understand the link with some things that you mentioned, like inflammation, and others that might be associated with obesity and peoples who struggle with weight management, because we often attack it from the behavior and choice and lifestyle perspective, which I think is good for everybody to do. But some people don't respond as well. And I want to understand that link, and what what is destroying our gut bacteria or altering it as we live our life? And then of course, we'll get into how do we develop healthy gut bacteria? So I just threw like three different questions that you, but I think, I think you got it all.
Josh Dech 16:51
making notes. So let's deal with inflammation first. So inflammation coming from the gut comes from a lot of places, primarily, we're gonna see it from bacteria. Now, every bacteria lives in the gut, right? Well, not every bacteria lives in the gut, the ones that live in your gut are responsible for your gut, we do have microbiomes all over the body, right? Oral nasal, on your scalp, your hair, skin, eyebrows, groin, right, rectal, vaginal, oral, these are all different microbiomes. And everybody has a unique one. And so inflammation comes when there's disharmony or imbalance. And so the acronym I typically use or the analogy, rather, is that, you know, everything in this world has a role to play in the economy, or in the general ecosystem of a city, a town or neighborhood. And whether we agree with it or not, even the crack dealer at the gas station has a role to play in the local economy, right, or the local judicial system that's got a role somewhere. And so they have a role to play. So even the bad bacteria, the Candida, the Clostridium, those ones still have a role to play when they are in regular normal levels. But if every gas station, every grocery store, every coffee shop, sold nothing but crack. Now we've got a problem, right? Things just fall apart. So in the same way, where you have an overrun of these bad what we call opportunistic or pathogen, bacteria, the dangerous ones, then we have imbalances. Just the same if you have too much good imagine too much gentrification. It's all you know, 25 year old white girls moving into a neighborhood now you have 15, Starbucks and no groceries. So it's another
Philip Pape 18:23
trigger a bunch of people on this this episode represents.
Josh Dech 18:28
So we look at this, we have to understand the imbalances that are the problem. Everything lives. It's not about competition. It's about harmony inside the gut. And so when people are triggered, high cortisol, high stress, high inflammation, creates disharmony. And so when we look at these and say, Okay, there's imbalance in the gut bacteria, these do three main things that we'll start to see. Number one, we can see actual toxins being produced, right, like we go into the term of LPs, it's labeled polysaccharide. Or another word is endo toxins, right. And they'll just meaning within the toxins created by these bacteria. Now they get out, they create inflammation, they lead to more imbalance. Inflammation also creates imbalance because healthy, happy bacteria can't live inside of a house is on fire. But the bad guys love that. They want to move into inflammation, they want to create inflammation, they want sugar, alcohol, breads, those types of things. And so that's one way imbalance creates actual inflammatory markers or byproducts from the bacteria. The second thing we see from the inflammation is leaky gut. Now there are some people who still say I leaky gut BS, but there are some really great informations out there about leaky gut, we know it exists. We know the role of Zonulin, for example, that actually creates further leaks. But when you have inflammation, the cells in your intestines spread apart further than normal. Now, typically, they're held together by something called gap junctions. It's a little binder that holds them together, and healthy things by nutrients pass through that wall, the small intestine. It's only one cell thick before it enters your blood you can get to lymphatic system They're all kinds. But that's micro molecules to at an appropriate size to transfer through the tissue to get into your blood and circulate as they should. But if you're inflamed, and you have large leaks and large gaps, now macro molecules, these endotoxins, these things can pass through getting around the superhighway of your body, which is your blood, your lymphatic can get to your brain, your joints, your skin, and when it gets there, it disrupts those microbiome. So we see acne, psoriasis, arthritis, hair loss, all kinds of other things, anxiety, depression, and things get into the brain. Because these leaks go beyond they create leaky lung. So I've seen asthma from a gut inflammation, we see leaky brain anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, other mental health conditions can all be connected back to the gut, and immune conditions. One of the primary legs, actually autoimmune conditions is leaky gut. So lupus and MS, all that stuff goes back to the gut. So that's our main two ways. endotoxins, leaky gut, the third way that we can see would be actual immunological issues, because you know, 70 to 90% of your immune system is within your gut, right? The actual B cells and T cells, these immune cells are grown and matured in the gut. Or we see an imbalance in things like neurotransmitters, which have a feedback loop to creating stress to creating inflammation, gi changes, which again, further disrupt things. So those are kind of your main umbrellas in which we see inflammation coming from the gut. Okay,
Philip Pape 21:21
yeah, no. So assuming there are too many crack dealers, or rich white girls, you're going to have you're going to have the toxins create inflammatory markers, the the leakage for the macromolecules that can then spread throughout the body and immune issues, immunological issues. So yeah, that's good. So then how do we how do we reverse that? How do we either develop healthy gut bacteria in the first place? If someone is listening to it, and maybe he's younger? I assume there's a time factor to this, but maybe I'm wrong. of age and lifestyle? How do we how do we develop the healthy bacteria?
Josh Dech 21:50
Great question. So we can go all the way back to birth? Right. I mean, we know like we talked about we mentioned being born vaginal and breastfed changes, everything in breastfeeding actually changes the structure, the bone structure, the nose, the mouth and the skull. You'll notice people who knows breathe when who are breastfed tend to have a wider John more square shape and wider, broader cheekbones, and those who are maybe bottle fed and mouth breathe, right, they can actually see that shrinking. And so there's physiological changes there which translate to the rest of your health. But of course, the immediate inoculation of bacterium from breast milk, right? And then, of course, that inoculation from being vaginally born through the birth canal. Those are our top two ways from birth. Now, nobody listening to this podcast is a baby. So I'll just skip ahead to the next bit. It's growing up, right? If you have kids, and they're outside playing, let them get their hands dirty, let them touch stuff, right, let them go and pick their nose, you're gonna introduce bacteria, they're gonna get sick, their immune system is going to build it's going to adapt. That's the adaptive immune system. Again, like we talked about, farmers have the most diverse, robust micro biomes of all that are typically tested or again, like native tribes and native indigenous tribes living in the jungle living off the land, right? They have the most inoculation of bacteria and are the healthiest coincidently don't have a 10th of the health issues we have. And so that's number one is development. It's exposure. It's from birth, it's regulation. Hey,
Philip Pape 23:15
this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this guest interview on Wits & Weights. If you're finding it valuable, you can get a bonus conversation we recorded. If you're on our email list, just go to wits & weights.com/bonus, or click the link in the show notes. Insiders on our email list will get a link to the bonus conversation where my guest will give you the exact steps to take related to one of the topics in today's episode. Again, these conversations are only available if you're on our free email list. To get the bonus exclusive content with today's guest. Just go to wits & weights.com/bonus, or click the link in the show notes. Now back to the show.
Josh Dech 23:57
Now, if we talk about the things, how to basically create a better gut, we want to stop talk about prevention. Number one, we want to prevent damage. That's your alcohols, your sugars. I'm a big advocate against gluten for the most part, especially in autoimmune disease. Those are huge, huge components. We have to look at antibiotics, medications, smoking, fried food, packaged foods, high fructose corn syrup, things that damage the liver, because everything's connected, right? Western medicine has this very reductionist view of the human body where it's just your gut, just your thyroid, just your brain, just your skin. We have skin issues with topical ointment, but your skin is a detox organ, largest organ in the body. It's typically a reflection of internal issues coming out externally. And so we have this reductionist view or it's systematic one thing at a time, but your entire body's connected so we have to look at that general health. So if we're doing things to disrupt that high stress, basic principles like not chewing your food, eating garbage, food, those disrupt the gut, or anything that disrupts the biome pesticides, right we dump a billion pounds of pesticides on our food every year. There's about 17,000 different pesticides approved for use in the USA. And there's 50% more highly toxic pesticides used in the USA than say in the UK, for example, of highly dangerous stuff that we know causes genetic damage. DNA damage, destroys gut bacteria glyphosate being one of the worst. One of the worst offenders that we see right now. Oatmeal for those listening. That's, that's Roundup, right? Yes, Roundup. Absolutely. And all your grains, right. They're sprayed and covered in this stuff. And that's the problem is we're being fed, poisoned effectively. We look at things in our water. We know there are forever chemicals, these PF A's, we know that 60 plus percent of all Americans take regular prescription drugs, maybe it's 50%. But 60 70%, over 5060 years old. Take two or more regular drugs. So imagine how many pharmaceuticals birth control all that goes into our water? So drinking filtered water, these are all prevention steps, right? It's like how do I get my house to stop burning down, we'll stop pouring gasoline on it first, number one. Number two, we want to talk repair and rebuild. That's where we won. After we've stopped. We let things cool off. We improve inflammatory responses, we give your body the tools it needs in the form of resources, which is food, nutrients, nutrition. Many of us are overfed but undernourished. And so we're seeing a lot of these things coming through. So you just have to give your body the tools, remove the things causing the problem, and it has the ability to heal itself. Right? Headaches are not a byproduct of aspirin deficiency. Pray there's something else going on. If that's what we have to look at here is where's your body? What's blocking it from doing this job?
Philip Pape 26:36
So I know, I know what people are thinking right now already. They're like, Oh, here we go. Again, that sounds so overwhelming, right? All the snaps that I have made. And, you know, we talk a lot on this show about flexible dieting and doing what works for you. And not not necessarily changing everything all at once. But taking steps day by day. And I guess I know that I know. That's what the listener is thinking, right? Because you said alcohol, sugar, good medications, birth control, smoking. You know, some things are the big ones like smoking. I mean, I hopefully nobody's doing that. I mean, people are doing that. But hopefully that's like a big one that you would cut out. But you know, when you say sugar, or when you say gluten, right? A lot of people might say, well, you know, I tolerate gluten fine. And I need to eat a lot of carbs because I'm building muscle. And I'm also meant managing my weight. Okay, and I feel okay, where's that line? Where's that balance? Because I know people don't want to just restrict a whole bunch of things. I'm just, I'm just asking what of that were that is for you. Yeah,
Josh Dech 27:27
that's, that's what you're really willing to sacrifice. Like, I am covered in tattoos. I know heavy metals are bad for my body. And I'm probably gonna fight these the rest of my life. And I made a decision. I was like, I want them anyway. So we make bad choices. You know, ultimately, the closer we get to nature, the further we get from disease and wherever that line is, is up to you. For me. I'm a big advocate for animal based diets, but I don't eat carnivore, I eat a lot of meat. I still eat some fruits and make soup for my wife or something, you know, maybe then I'll have I'll have some vegetables. But that for me is where I'm most comfortable. I feel that one's nourished. Some people say, Well, I want to go and drink. Well, the good news is, well, bad news is we know zero milligrams of alcohol are ever good for the human body. But the good news is you have an immense amount of defense mechanisms. In fact, there's something in between in your stomach between the stomach and small intestine called TLR. For its toll like receptor number four, and they stand guard, and they basically say you can come in, you shall not pass by the standard, like Gandalf at the bridge. And so what they want to do is they control and regulate things coming in and out. I'm sure we've all eaten something or those sensitive guts. No, I've eaten I've drank Tim Hortons coffee. I've had something and ran right through the 10 minutes I was on the toilet. That's actually your toll like receptor for opening up deliberately creating leaky gut. Leaky gut is a defense mechanism. It's a good thing. So it opens the floodgates, right? Like putting your thumb over a hose on the driveway to wash things out and push them through so it will not toxify the body. Your body does that with gluten. It recognizes it now. Not everybody has a notable bloated gluten sensitivity. But Dr. Tom O'Brien he says to me says the ones who have gut issues with gluten are the lucky ones because they know pretty quickly it's the gluten but those who have arthritis, skin issues, brain fog, mental clarity issues two, three days later, we're not putting it together. But they say everybody has some kind of issue with gluten, whether or not they tolerate it, whether or not they have celiac, everyone has some kind of issue. And those toll like receptors open that floodgate up in some way. Now, the other hand, those toll like receptors when you drink alcohol, well what are the main uses for alcohol, right? We use them for drinking. So it's either celebration or commiseration. Whatever your preference is. We use it for sanitization. And we sometimes use it as additives or ingredients for tinctures. But that's about it. Otherwise, alcohol has no main purpose really, maybe as a preserve or something else. It didn't but that's it. And so we know more. We know for example, for using a sanitization it destroys bacteria, but most of our backs Serial living our large intestine, the vast majority, like 90 plus percent of our gut bacteria are there, it's three to five pounds of it making up two to 3% of the average human body weight. Now imagine taking alcohol in a colonoscopy and rinsing out the colon one, it would burn like hell, but two, you would destroy everything in there. So these toll like receptors do have a defense mechanism. What they do is they block that alcohol and trickle it through ever so slowly, you can absorb some to the mouth, some through the stomach, which very few things can absorb in the stomach itself. And it trickles it through at a rate that your body can absorb it into the blood to put it through your liver, would rather put it to your liver and your brain that into your gut to destroy gut bacteria. That is how sacred our gut bacteria is to the body. And so there are defense mechanisms, sugar feeds bad bacteria, some people can tolerate it better. If you have Candida, if you have imbalances, those guys love sugar, they will make more toxins. I'm not saying sugar free forever, right? But if you have an infection, maybe look at it for six weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks as a remedy of sorts, right to get you to healthy where you can tolerate the influx of the sugars. Yeah,
Philip Pape 31:05
so a couple of themes come to mind. One is our body's ability to withstand some level of toxicity, but not very much. And it really depends on the toxin you're putting in. So like you said, there's always a trade off. And I definitely I definitely agree on alcohol, like there's no good that comes from it. And even the rationalizations people use for having it, I think there are substitutions for that. But the the other thing was that I'm also a fan of elimination diets. So like what you're suggesting, even though I don't 100% buy into everything about gluten, and we can agree to disagree, that's fine. We're not gonna solve it here. And that's okay. But on the Elimination Diet piece of and I'm sure you walk clients through some version of that, where you basically, you know, they stop exposing your body to a whole bunch of things, and then maybe reintroduce as needed to see what the offender might be. I do want to ask about related to food, fiber, and prebiotics, people ask about that all the time, like, what is the role of fiber or how much we kind of know the general guidelines, but some people swear by more some people say the tube, there's too much fiber you can have, and what exactly the role is of that. And then also prebiotics, and both foods, probiotic and prebiotic foods and supplements. So I don't know how many, again, big topic, but yeah, I'll grant everybody what everybody wants to know about,
Josh Dech 32:19
I can skim those short. So let's talk about pre post and probiotics. So use the analogy of fish in a fish tank, right? Your probiotics are the living organism inside, that's the bacteria, that's the goldfish in the fishbowl, right? The prebiotics are the food, that's what the bacteria or the fish eat post biotics or the fish poop. That's what they produce. Now that poop can be a very, very good in the ecosystem, there are critters that eat that poop as food, there are critters that utilize it, it can be a good thing. But if we have too much poop in the tank, right, it gets really muddy and the fish die. And that's the same thing with the bacteria. If we have too much byproducts that are not being utilized too much bad bacteria producing excess bacteria poop so to speak, then that becomes problematic. And so prebiotics are the food that we want to know, right? So not everybody needs prebiotics. If you have a really nice healthy balance. prebiotics might be helpful for you. If you have imbalance or like a low floor of good bacteria. prebiotics might be very good to bring them up to par. If you have lots of high bacteria and bad bacteria, they're producing too much fish poop, right? And that becomes problematic. On the other hand, they compete for space, right big fish, eat little fish, some other fish, they compete against each other. And so we introduce certain species of probiotics. I use them strategically in my clients. If someone has an overgrowth, for example of C diff, right a lot of people dealing with gut disease have gone through the wringer been in hospital treated with antibiotics. There are actually certain strains and species of lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. We can use to inhibit or reduce the risk factor of getting a C Diff infection. Somebody's dealing with Candida right certain overgrowth, we can use like saccharomyces boulardii, for example, to help inhibit candida overgrowth, or SIBO and overgrowth of bacteria, Lactobacillus reuteri might be very good for that. Bacterial vaginosis reuteri and RAM Gnosis are great for that, like women who get UTIs my clients literally give them a coconut oil of Tom take a tampon, put coconut oil on it, and take this is one by metagenics called Ultra floor women's. And it's got Lactobacillus reuteri and Rab Gnosis I'll have empty a capsule on the tampon insert, leave it overnight, and nine out of 10 times it's gone in one day, so far 100% of the time has gone on to it's even been used for yeast infections, but because it's a urinary tract infection, and when veterinary tracking the use of infections, that's right. Okay, because those infections are imbalances of bacteria. That's all it is. And bacteria compete for space. And if you use vaginally native bacteria, right, like rhamnosus and reuteri, they can get in there and do their job and the same happens to the gut. And we can use bacteria strategically competing for space. So that's kind of the overview of prebiotics, probiotics and post biotics Now, let's talk about fiber. I'm in the air on this one. So as it got specialist dealing with, again, Crohn's Colitis being one of the most severe gut diseases next to colon cancer people, these people, they're so inflamed, they can't breathe, they can't do things they can't go out. Sometimes if 3040 50 bowel movements a day with blood and mucus, it's quite debilitating. And so a lot of them can't handle the fiber can't break it down. Right? It's very rough. But even myself, I have a very healthy gut. But I don't eat a lot of fiber and my bowels are great. In fact, I actually I tried on a challenge carnivore for like eight weeks, give or take. And I did my bloodwork and my GI maps a month or two before in several months after I went carnivore and then still animal based to this day, my blood work was improved dramatically, my GI map, my stool was improved dramatically, and I get very little fiber. And so I truly am on the fence fiber can be great. I use it in samples, for example, someone comes back and they have very low diversity, I will give them you know, probiotic based foods, fermented food, probiotic supplements, spore probiotics to get in and grow. And I will nurture those with prebiotics and food. But right now, it's something that I'm very interested in learning as the research is still coming out. The conventional wisdom is your bacteria need fiber, because they take that they ferment it, they turn it into butyrate, and valerate and propriate, these short chain fatty acids and byproducts. But on the other hand, you get people who don't eat a lick of fiber, but have a very healthy body and a very healthy gut. And I think a lot of this data, like we talked about is very, very skewed. Because for example, we get people coming in with such diverse micro biomes. And our samples are from a sick population. And if we were to go over to, you know, the jungle somewhere and take these people living off the land and test their micro biomes, they eat very little fiber, maybe some fruits, but most plants are poisonous, or very few plants are going to be healthy. But most animals, we can eat something like 2% of plants are not poisoned, and 98% of animals are safe to eat. And so they eat primarily carnivore based or animal based diets, and they don't have the diseases we do. And so I'm curious to see as the research that may be coming out soon on the microbiomes and microbial diversity of these indigenous tribes. And that I believe should be our reference ranges for North America, even though we have different land, different culture, different species and strains. It's what is the standard of food and nutrition? Do we really need that much fiber, like the argument of fiber is eat it because you can't break it down. So it scrubs you and it feeds your bacteria. But the argument against me is don't eat it because you can't break it down. So which is right, we can't have it both ways. And so my clients do very, very well on animal based diets, very few do well on plant in my experience.
Philip Pape 37:38
Okay, that's another another area of where we probably have a little disagreement only because which I love. Let's Let's go. Yeah, and but people also know me as a nice guy, I'm not a big I don't I don't have big debate show to be honest. And when it comes to fiber, honestly, there's different reasons people eat it, right. Like, in some cases, it's where satiety, and I've definitely heard of people who become more regular and feel better with more fiber. But I've also seen where I've just got too much fiber, or people with UC and IBS and stuff like that, where it's like, gotta be really careful what kind of fiber you get. Other bodybuilders are like, let's just pack on the insoluble fiber when we're in a diet, you know, because it all goes through, you know, so, again, I'm not I don't think we're going to resolve that here. And there's all different camps, who the next thing I really want to talk about is then physical activity, and gut health, you know, walking and things like that, because I know that walking after a meal seems to help with digestion and blood sugar control with a lot of folks. I'm but I'm looking at bidirectionally. How does, What's the link between physical activity and gut health? You can get specific if you want, what types of activity or just more general?
Josh Dech 38:42
sure if I can back that up. One sec. For you, Philip, I agree with you on the disagreeing, I think it's wise to and I vote for intuitive eating. I still to this day, even though I advocate for animal based do make heavy plant based diets for my clients. Because everyone's different. And that's the interesting thing is we just don't know, there's evidence on both sides. There's things that and this was I want to get this for the listener because I don't want to say, you know, eat meat, nothing but meat. I'm an advocate for animal based. But I've had people like I said, thrive with more plants because they need it. I think it's all individual. Once we develop a level of intuitive eating, there's a difference there between cravings, right? Like why do women crave chocolate when they're on their period? Well, they're looking for iron, magnesium, and carbs or sugars to create progesterone. And so that's a large part of its intuition. But if you drive past the McDonald's thing that smells good, that's not intuitive eating. That's a craving, right? It's genetically modified food to trigger your brain. And so when I look at this, for me, it's what works well for you. And even though I'll recommend diets to my clients, ultimately they are the judge and they know it doesn't doesn't agree with them. And so for the listeners, take what I say with a grain of salt, do your own research test on yourself. Take what Philip says try it take what I say try it and come to your own conclusion. And that's very, very important.
Philip Pape 39:57
Oh that's for sure Ray because I used to say that I won't work with vegetarians or vegans in my program. And I started to open that up when I realized that they can be successful. It just requires a lot more work when you're kind of on the fringes of different diets. And I've seen the same on the other direction with with carnivore. Interestingly, when you're trying to get a lot of protein, if you're omnivorous, it's going to be a lot of animal products anyway. Yes. But then the and then the plants come in there to kind of fill it in with the nutrients and the the data and the fiber and stuff. Agreed. Cool. So yeah, physical activity. I'm
Josh Dech 40:28
curious about because we will activity short. So let's talk physical activity, that bi directional relationship. We know physical activity actually influences the growth of beneficial bacteria influences the immune system promoting detoxification, right sweating major detox pathway, lymphatics, blood, liver, guts, skin, they're all major detox pathways. Even respiration is a detox pathway for certain things. And so they're very, very beneficial all that regard. But it's interesting. So back to these mouse studies, they had actually shown the metabolic benefits to blood sugar and insulin and blood pressure, other vital signs of mice who are given a transplant of fecal bacteria, like oral transplant from fit mice. So lazy, not in I won't say lazy, they're not lazy. They're made to be lazy. But inactive mice who have poor metabolic health, we're getting bacteria from mice with good metabolic health. And the poor health mice became healthier simply by gaining those bacteria. Because again, these bacteria produce all kinds of byproducts, they have all kinds of signaling pathways that go back and forth to every cell in the body. Right? Even probiotics, right? It's very hard to culture them, a lot of them are actually dead in capsule, they're not living organisms anymore. But they even have these positive post biotic they made that coming through the system, even though they don't culture, they go through Cree benefits because those byproducts signal back and forth to cytokines and cells and neurotransmitters and all kinds for production. So it's part of the ecosystem anyways, and exercise benefits all regards. Now. I wouldn't say go and eat a meal than to go for a run, you're gonna vomit. I mean, everybody's gone swimming after a large meal like crab, that's fine. But in general, there is a bi directional relationship of good bacteria to producing healthy metabolic benefits allowing better Hormonal Health, metabolic health. Energy, blood pressure, insulin, right output, strength, neurological health, and vice versa, or exercise directly benefits your bacterial profiles.
Philip Pape 42:25
Yeah, no. Love it. I mean, there's no there's no disadvantage to being active. And it's fascinating that you can transfer the profile, the gut profile of active Meissen to inactive mice, they're going to they're going to be looking for that as another. Give it two years. It'll be right because just like we have the weight loss drugs now. Yeah. Fecal
Josh Dech 42:43
transplants if they're already trying to patent certain strains. And like, I see that 50 years from now, I made a prediction already that the very wealthy will be purchasing fecal transplants to have to exercise less and get the benefits like the doing the surgery and pills today,
Philip Pape 42:57
for sure. Yeah, no, it's insane. And I'm a big fan of lifestyle change. And I know that's, that's what you're an advocate for here. And even if we can't understand the why we can understand the what to do about it to some extent, you know, we could at least compare and try and experiment. We're going to be recording a small, a small mini episode after this to answer a few more questions for listeners who are on my email list. So for folks who want even more from Joshua, we're going to answer some things as well as q&a. But before we leave, is there anything you wish I had asked you, Josh? And what is your answer?
Josh Dech 43:27
Wow, that's a great question. We've covered so much. Here's my thing that I think everybody should know. Maybe it's kind of a last word here. Your gut bacteria really like we talked about? Here it is everything the power of one small thing? Are you familiar Phillip with toxoplasmosis?
Philip Pape 43:44
That sounds familiar. Is that the one you get from cat? Pouches? Yeah,
Josh Dech 43:49
that's the one so anybody who's been pregnant by no other doctor says like, don't change the litter box, because they contain a parasite are prone to containing a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii. Now, these toxoplasma are parasites. Their goal is to get into the belly of a cat, right? Because they want to live their best life. They want to do what they do and breed and grow and, you know, hashtag live, laugh, love, and so they get to a cat. How do they do that? Well, they actually will make themselves get into mice because they know mice get eaten by cats. This little individual parasite knows this. But it goes two steps further number one, it actually burns out the dendrites the fear center of the mouse's brain and to make less afraid of cats as a prey animal, it runs the other direction. So now it's not afraid of cats, but it takes it a step further. The second piece is it rewires the mouse's brain in order to be sexually attracted to the smell of cat urine so will then seek out cats not be afraid of cats, increasing the likelihood of ending up in a cat's belly. And we've seen tests from people for example, who have been really heroic running into a burning building to save a stranger jumping into the street to push a baby out of the way of a moving car who's not paying attention. Many of them have been infected with toxoplasma bacterium so much so the US military has been mutterings about using it in soldiers for that suffering a battle. But the idea being this one little parasite, right? Has that much power to rewrite an entire biological organism from a mouse to a human, that's one, you have 100 trillion bacteria inside of your gut. If they are in line, picture what they can do for you, if they're out of balance, imagine what they could do to you an afterthought I'll leave you with.
Philip Pape 45:21
And it's a positive one, in my opinion, right? Because now you have the power of choice and control over that to some extent. 100%. You do? Awesome. That's, that's what I take from it. So Josh, where can listeners learn more about you and your work? So
Josh Dech 45:34
easiest way to get a hold of me is over at gut solution.ca. I do work worldwide for those dealing with Crohn's and Colitis. There's links there, of course, to the podcast, any information you want. I'm biased. It's a great show. If you want to learn more about gut specifically, every single week, we have some sort of world famous expert, Steven Gundry. William Lee, we have a famous plastic surgeon from Beverly Hills actually coming in to talk about wound healing, all kinds of cool connects between your gut and your everyday health. And we also do weekly episodes, just q&a. From our listeners submitted question, we make an episode for you. And that's like you mentioned reversible, the Ultimate Health podcast but it can all be found at gut solution.ca. Cut
Philip Pape 46:12
solution.ca. So that's out of Canada. Yes, sir. Calgary,
Josh Dech 46:15
Alberta.
Philip Pape 46:16
That's right. All right. We'll definitely put that in the show notes. And for those listening, follow the podcast reversible, and get all the great content that Josh just mentioned. Josh, it was a pleasure to have you on the show, man.
Josh Dech 46:27
It's a lot of fun pleasure being here. Thanks so much. Hello.
Philip Pape 46:31
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