Unfunc your Gut with Functional Medicine Physician Dr. Peter Kozlowski
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November 3, 2021 - Episode #82 - Unfunc your Gut with Functional Medicine Physician Dr. Peter Kozlowski
Now listen, if I say the words gut health, I’m going to make the assumption that this is not on your priority list. You have a lot going on. The average person isn't thinking about gut health unless you are having issues. But what if I told you that gut health is the essential cornerstone to your overall health? That your joint pains, skin rashes, frequent illness, gastrointestinal distress and depression are all connected. It all comes back to your gut. That up to 75% of your immune function comes from your gut, 95% of your serotonin that feel good hormone is manufactured in your gut. If you want to look good and feel good, the secret lies in gut health. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to my guest, leading gut health expert, author and Functional Medicine doctor, Dr. Koz. This is our hot topic today on the Healthy Harmony podcast. Dr. Peter Kozlowski, affectionately known as Dr. Koz, is a Functional Medicine physician with a specialty in gut health and the author of Unfunc your Gut - Boost your Immune System, Heal your Gut and Unlock your Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Health. Dr. Koz sees patients virtually and in person in his Chicago, Illinois and Bozeman, Montana offices. In Part 1 of this two-part series, Dr. Koz breaks down......
Gut health is a complicated science! What I absolutely LOVE about this podcast is that Dr. Koz has fantastic analogies and is easy to understand! Listen and learn. Before you go...most of you listening have no idea about health coaching. Because you have either had a bad experience or no experience at all. If listening to these hot topics on the podcast make you feel a little overwhelmed, please know you don’t have to figure it out alone. I do have a limited number of 1 hour virtual health coaching spots available. One might have your name on it. Go to inspirehealthyharmony.com/coaching to learn more. And here is the link to purchase Dr. Koz's book Unfunc your Gut: tinyurl.com/3fpna5y4 Read Full Transcript below Where else to listen: (note: Google is only available on android devices)
FULL TRANSCRIPT November 3, 2021 - Episode #82 - Unfunc your Gut with Functional Medicine Physician Dr. Peter Kozlowski Speaker 1: Now, listen, if I say the words, gut health, I'm going to make the assumption here that this is not on your priority list. You have a lot going on a lot, coming at you, gut health. Well, that's not something we really pay attention to unless there's something going wrong and you're having some issues. But what if I told you that gut health is the essential cornerstone to your overall health, that your joint pains, skin rashes, frequent illness, gastrointestinal distress, and depression are all connected. It all comes back to your gut. That up to 75% of your immune function comes from your gut. That 95% of your serotonin, that feel-good hormone is manufactured in your gut. If you want to look good and feel good, the secret lies in gut health. And Hey, don't take my word for it. Listen to my guests. Leading gut health expert, author and functional medicine doctor Dr. Kozlowski. This is our hot topic today on the Healthy Harmony podcast. Welcome to the Healthy Harmony podcast. I'm Jennifer Pickett, Dietitian turned Functional Medicine Health Coach. I help spiraling moms overcome the overwhelm through functional wellness coaching for the body, mind, and soul that they can transform their health and live a deeply fulfilled life of freedom and harmony let's get real when it comes to your health, you know what to do. I strongly believe that to make the shift from mellowing to doing you must apply mindfulness, listen to your body address. What's really driving that behavior. Be intentional and finally practice some self-compassion. The last 24 years of experience have taught me that the absolute blast thing, a woman needs is a lecture about self care and another unrealistic diet plan. I recognize the importance of compassionate and intentional health practices. So you can feel good because guess what, when you feel good, you are more likely to make better decisions for your health If you're ready to take control of your complete health, address the obstacles standing in your way and live a life of freedom and harmony you, my friend, you are in the right place. Most of you listening have no idea about health coaching because you've either had a bad experience or just no experience at all. But if listening to all these hot topics on the podcast, make you feel a little overwhelmed because you know, you need some help. Please know that you don't have to figure it out. Alum. I do have a limited number of one-hour virtual health coaching spots available. Now, when I say very limited and main, very limited. So if you're looking, if you're interested, you might want to grab one of those very quickly. So it's limited that one might have your name on it. So to find out more, go to inspirehealthyharmony.com/coaching. As a functional medicine doctor Dr.Peter Kozlowski uses a broad array of tools to find the source of the bodies that dysfunction his expertise is in gut health, but he also works a daily with food sensitivities, hormone imbalances, detoxing from toxic chemicals, such as heavy metals and mold, and most importantly, mental, emotional and spiritual health. He works with patients online and in Chicago via his Chicago, Illinois office and his Bozeman Montana based offices. His recently published book Unfunc your Gut encapsulates his collaborative patient first healthcare approach in true research space, conversational style. It offers a blend of medical insight and the experience or wisdom of his own healing journey through addiction recovery. He inspires us to seek and find real answers to what's going on with my health and empowers readers with practical strategies and delicious recipes to achieve true balance of the body, mind and spirit. I'm so excited to do this interview with Dr.Koz today is one of my favorite topics and I've got a renowned expert on the podcast today. This is Dr. Peter Kozlowski and he is joining us. And we're going to talk about your gut. Welcome Dr. Kozlowski. I'm glad you're here. Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor. Speaker 1: Please tell us where you're joining us from. Cause I told you before we started, there's just a little bit of jealousy going on when you tell them your location. Speaker 3: I'm in Bozeman in Montana, right outside a big sky and Yellowstone, and just right in the middle of the Mountains. Looking out onto the mountains now. Speaker 1: Uh, so peaceful, so peaceful. I love, love, love the mountains. Um, now you are a, you're a functional medicine practitioner. And, um, we use that term and I think people are coming to understand what functional medicine is, but I would love to hear how you describe functional medicine and how it's uniquely qualified to treat chronic illness. Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say the easiest way to describe it is when a patient comes to see me as a family practice doctor, I was taught to listen to their symptoms and figure out what pill was going to make them feel better. As a functional medicine doctor, I was taught to listen to someone's story, plot their information on a timeline and help figure out what triggered, what started their disease, what triggered it, and what's keeping them sick. So we're trying to figure out why someone has chronic disease or why someone's ill. And I warned my patient. I'm like, we're not, I'm not going to be giving you supplements or, um, pills that are necessarily going to make you feel better today, right? That's the traditional medicine model we are trying to figure out what's underlying. And then when we figure that out, we get rid of what there's too much of. We add what there's not enough of, and we help balance the body. And through doing that, the symptoms usually go away. Speaker 1: I love that. And I tell you what I love the most about functional medicine is instead of saying, what is it and what can we throw at it in terms of medications or procedures or surgeries, functional medicine takes the question to dig deep and ask the question why, why is this happening? And I think this is what's been missing, and this is why people have gotten to that point of desperation where they're, they're sick and tired of being sick and tired. And they've been literally abandoned by the traditional healthcare system and they're looking for answers and they're willing to do some things differently if they're given a clear-cut plan of action. Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree. We have, go ahead. Speaker 1: No, go ahead. Speaker 2: I know we have a policy at my practice where a lot of times we have, um, a husband or a wife or a daughter or a son or a parent call and be like, Hey, I want to schedule a visit for my daughter. I want to schedule a visit for my wife and very early in my career. I learned that that doesn't work. Um, when someone is drug into my office and just kind of told like, okay, you have a doctor's visit today. Um, they have, they don't believe it or don't want to do it. It doesn't work. So functional medicine only works if you work it. And that that's not for everybody. Right. There are a lot of people that would rather just kind of take a pill and not make any changes, but I, we don't have magic pills. Right. We have the tools to help people discover how to balance their health. Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. Um, it doesn't work unless you work it and it does, it requires some effort and some work on your part. Um, and so today's topic, you know, functional medicine really looks at getting to the root of the issue. So gut health is something I'm talking about literally all day, every day, my kids, I have two teenagers now, 16 and 14, but they've heard me talk about gut health for a very, very long time. They like to tease me a little bit about it. Um, so it's such an important topic. And as we talk about functional medicine and getting to the root issue, this is one of the main root issues is poor gut health. So what, what does that mean? When I say poor gut health, will you give us, like, what does that mean? Because this is something you and I talk about a lot, but it may not be on a lot of people's radars. Speaker 2: So I think at its best was stated 3000 years ago, by Hippocrates, when he said all disease begins in the gut and poor gut health doesn't necessarily mean gut symptoms. So most people think like, okay, I have constipation or I have diarrhea, or I get bloated. I've worked with so many people now that don't have any GI symptoms, gut symptoms, but they have chronic disease like eczema or autoimmune disease or migraines or something like that. And they have no clue it's their gut because there we're just not taught to think that way. So the that's I think an important thing to understand is the majority of the time, like, I mean, most people will have gut symptoms, but just because you don't doesn't mean you don't, you might not have gut issues. And that gets into basically, since Hippocrates said that 3000 years ago, everything we're doing is damaging the gut, right? Stress, environmental toxins, genetically modified foods, herbicides, pesticides, antibiotics, antidepressants, ibuprofen, everything we're putting in our bodies or were being exposed to is damaging our guts. Speaker 1: So can you elaborate a little bit further and tell us how some of those things are damaging the gut, for example, how do antibiotics damage the gut? Speaker 2: So an important concept, if people, I think a lot of people have heard the term microbiome now, um, or probiotics, like that's a common thing in traditional. Like if you tell your friend like, Hey, I've got issues or like, okay here, take or they're like, oh, you should take a probiotic. Um, well the reason that, I mean, probiotics, the reason we talk about them is that every one of us has somewhere between three to five pounds of bacteria growing inside of us, that is called your microbiome. Um, I have a t-shirt that I wear that says mostly microbe. And we are, um, we're mostly bacteria. We as humans have about 23,000 genes. They've found over 20 million bacterial genes in our gut. And those gut bacteria influence our health. So they talk to us, they changed the way we transcribe DNA effect our immune system, our nervous system, our bone growth, our artery growth, our weight, these bacteria are influencing everything and our environment is very damaging to them. So with the example of antibiotics, why are antibiotics so bad for the gut? What is an antibiotic? It's a tablet or capsule. It was designed to kill bacteria. Where do we put it in a tube that has five pounds of bacteria in it? So taking antibiotics just once ever your entire life and wipe out half of your gut bacteria, Speaker 1: Crazy-- half, half of the gut bacteria. And especially if you've been on antibiotics several times, but you said something interesting that really stood out that I want to make sure we emphasize here that even taking antibiotics once at some point in your life, uh, has a very, very strong impact. So the answer is what do we do if, if a doctor is offering antibiotics and you're like, well, I need to, I need to take this right. I mean, we have to take it. If the doctor offers it, what would you suggest in that? Speaker 2: Um, I don't think you have to take it. Um, there's, I mean, I'm not anti-medications at all. Like, I think there's a very good place for antibiotics. Like if I got a cut, um, and my skin is infected, uh, I need an antibiotic to help get rid of that. Right. Um, I think that they're a little overprescribed that, um, just any kind of earache, throat, you know, any, any kind of respiratory symptoms right away. We're like, okay, take a, Z-Pak take, you know, there, there's just this over prescription of it. So it's not easy because you're, you know, who are you supposed to trust? You're supposed to trust the doctor that's prescribing, you know, that you went to, to ask questions about your health. So I don't know if a solution would be, is to have a functional medicine coach or doctor, whoever to run it by and be like, Hey, like, do you get a second opinion? Um, but sometimes they're necessary. And sometimes I will them for my patients, but just not to the degree that the regular doctors are doing it. Um, I'm a lot of people are surprised by this, but I'm not very pro probiotics. Speaker 1: So interesting. How do you want us to talk about that? Yeah. I want to hear about that. Speaker 2: The, the best way to describe the why, um, is to think about your microbiome, that three to five pounds of bacteria as your own garden. And in that analogy, your microbiome, the gut bacteria, or the plants, your gut bacteria are alive. They need to eat to stay alive and they eat fibers and sugars. We eat very, very, very little fiber in the standard American diet. So we starve those bacteria and they die. Well, we're being exposed, or let's say, so let's say we're not feeding our bacteria, or let's say our doctor gives us of course antibiotics. So our bacteria are dying, right? We are being exposed to trillions, probably bacteria, viruses, parasites, all these things all the time, right. They're there in our environment. And what they see is, so this, the analogy with the garden is what happens in your garden at home. If you don't take care of it, weeds grow. And that's what happens in our guts is the microbiome gets kind of, um, full of these plants that shouldn't be living there. And if your garden at home was full of weeds, would you go to the nursery and buy more plants? Yes. But first you would pull the weeds out. And so we use stool testing and urine testing and breath testing to identify what is growing in your garden and see whether, I mean, I, again, I'm not, I don't just put people on probiotics, but I'm not against them. If I'm treating something like candida, or if somebody goes on a course of antibiotics, I will prescribe a probiotic. But to just kind of like blindly, just take one is, is not, I don't, it depends. I mean, in a lot of people, if there's weeds, overgrowing your garden, then it's not very helpful. Speaker 1: Okay. I really, that, that analogy is so helpful. You know, if your garden is overgrown, are you going to just add more plants? No, you're going to pull out the weeds first. So you, I love how, by the way, you're two steps ahead of me because one of my next questions was how do we, how do we know what's going on with our guts? So will you give us some more detail about testing and how we know what's going on with our, with our gut garden. Speaker 2: The, the best way to, to, I mean, there's different parts of your gut that we could test, but if we're focusing just on your microbiome, then it's called a comprehensive stool analysis. And there's a couple of labs that are my favorite. They're called Genova diagnostics and doctor's data. Those are my two preferred labs. And what it is, is it, it's a picture basically of what is growing in your garden. So they tell you how many probiotics are growing. Do you have weeds? Do you have candida or yeast? Overgrowing? Do you have parasites? How inflamed is your gut? How active is your gut immune system? How well are your gut bacteria eating? Um, so there's a ton of information that that's a stool analysis. What tends to happen is candida is a very common yeast that can overgrow our guts and candida usually dies in the stool. Um, so you get a lot of false negatives. So your stool test will say, you don't have candida and interesting doctor we'll move on from it. Well, we also use something called organic acid testing and oat from Great Plains lab that measures the metabolites of the breakdown of candida. So a ribbon OSIS is a metabolite of candida when it's broken down. So in your urine, if we measure high ribbon dose levels, that likely points to a high amount of candida breakdown and we'll treat it. So the organic acid test also tells us about, um, your mitochondrial health, your neuro-transmitters glutathione levels, B vitamins, fatty acid oxidation. So you get this, all this extra info from the oat as well. And then the third test, if somebody just like, I want all the info about my gut, the third one that I would order is SIBO, breath testing. And SIBO to me is the, it's in my practice. It's the most common condition I work with Speaker 1: Explain what that stands for real quick, Speaker 2: Small intestine, bacteria overgrowth. And so what that means is your gut. The tube that starts with the mouth and ends with the anus is made of the mouth soft Magus stomach, small intestine, large intestine, the three to five pounds of bacteria live on the last part in the last part in the large intestine, your small intestine is where you should be digesting and absorbing your small intestines 20 feet long, but it has 2000 square feet of absorbative surface. So how do you get that much surface area is these little finger-like poachings called microvilli. And so the food and acid pass from the stomach into the small intestine. Once they're in there, the pancreas releases enzymes that help you break down fats, carbs, whatever proteins leftover from the stomach in that small, in the rest of that 20 feet. There's the microvilli that absorb the nutrients into your body. So the small intestine has a very, very important role in absorbing all your nutrients into your body and SIBO, small intestinal bacteria overgrowth means that the gut bacteria have migrated outside of like the plotted garden that you had. They're now growing. The weeds are growing outside the boundaries, the spread has spread into other parts of your gut. And that is such a problem because when your gut bacteria, when you eat your gut bacteria eat, and when they eat, even if they're healthy gut bacteria, if they're growing in the wrong place, you're going to feel really badly. So CBO is diagnosed through breath testing and what it is, it's a pretty cool test. I mean, you, you drink a little solution of latch yellow, so sugar, and then you blow into a tube every 20 minutes for two hours over the course of two hours, lactulose passes through your mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, those parts of your gut should not have any bacteria present your gut bacteria when they eat. It's an anaerobic process. So without oxygen. So when they eat, it creates gas. And if you start blowing out gas, which is what we're measuring every 20 minutes, that means the gut bacteria are higher up than they should be. And that's SIBO. Speaker 1: No, I was just going to do that. So that's a wonderful, probably one of the best descriptions that I've heard. I like how you break it down. Very simple. Cause I think sometimes these things are thrown out by experts and, and those that, that don't really know or have a good, deep understanding are just left confused. So let's say there a person who they have a feeling and they need to get their, their gut, their gut tested, where do they start? Like what would give them an indication that their gut health is not in good shape? Speaker 2: Well, I would argue that anybody should get their gut tests. Speaker 1: I would have to agree with you on that Speaker 2: Because it is a great preventative medicine tool. Um, and one of the questions I always get when I get someone's stool results back or their urine or their breath is like, well, did this start right? Like I have no clue. It's maybe been there for two weeks. It's maybe been there for 50 years. My hope and prayer is that one day, um, stool testing is just part of, um, your regular like GP visit, like your family practice visit or your pediatrician visit. Um, I don't know that that'll ever happen, but that would be awesome if it did, because then you'd be able to track the health of your gut over time and see how it changes. Um, so sorry. I lost my train of thought. Speaker 1: No, you're good. You're good. So we were discussing what are some indications? I mean, obviously everyone needs to have their gut tested. So what are some others? What are some other red flags, if you will, that would make somebody say, you know what, I need to go get the help and support that I need for guts. Speaker 2: Thank you. Sorry. So preventatively. I think everybody should do it, but anybody with any kind of chronic disease, really? So whether you have eczema or migraines or, uh, bloating or abdominal pain, I think that, you know, that's where a functional medicine practitioner with experience plays an important role because it's, it's, I don't like to just generalize it. Everybody should do this, or anybody should do that. But in most patients that I met with chronic disease, I could definitely make the argument that they should get their gut tested. If the CBO test is the one that, that a little bit plays a different, I wouldn't put that as a preventative test like that. I would only test people with symptoms and symptoms could be constipation, loading, diarrhea, abdominal pain, but then I've had a lot of patients over the years that don't have any gut symptoms. So somebody comes with like unexplained, um, rashes. I'll probably consider testing SIBO. Um, so there it's, there's, it's so prevalent. Um, I wrote a whole chapter on it in my book and also between kind of the, the chapter on the microbiome and the SIBO. Um, I feel like I gave a lot of information in regards to like how to understand the testing. Cause I know it's a lot of information on a podcast. Um, but the feedback I've gotten from patients is like, Hey, I read your book. But, um, I went and saw another functional medicine doctor, but I felt so much more informed going into that visit. Um, so that I tried to put that information there to make people more educated on that testing. But in short answer I would say is any kind of chronic disease, anybody that want to do preventative. And if, if somebody's really got a lot of bloating or a big thing with CBO is the diet. And so usually the healthiest foods make someone with CBO feel worse. So for example, um, garlic onions, apples of a Cahtos dairy, some grains, nuts and seeds. When I hear that, like, Hey, I have issues. I can't eat those foods. I'm always thinking test for SIBO. Speaker 1: You know, I really like how you're describing the, and I think you're really getting people to think, because the reality is that you're bringing up stuff like eczema and migraines and people would never, ever tie that to poor gut health. So will you explore that with us a little bit more skin health and gut health? Speaker 2: Yeah. So that, that's probably the most important topic to discuss with Y right? Cause it's like, what is this guy talking about? Like how can my eczema be starting in my gut? And the most important thing that I like to teach people about the gut is the inside of your gut tube is considered outside of your body so that it is a tube, right with openings on both ends. The most important job of the gut is to decide what comes into the body and what stays out. So it is a barrier that prevents or allows the outside world coming into the inside world. Well, most of us think of our skin when we think of that function, right? Our skin is keeping things out well, they, they, I mean, they both have other roles, but they share that role in common, the gut and the skin, they're both barriers into our body. The difference is, is the skin is super thick. The skin has three layers that are full of tons of different types of cells. Your gut lining is a single layer of cells. And so it's very, very thin and we also treat them differently, right? People wash their hands 20 times a day, but then they throw anything in their gut tube. Well, it's much easier for, for toxins to get into the body, through the gut and the skin and once. So that term leaky gut, right? That's another one that a lot of people have probably heard of leaky gut basically just means the barrier is lost. It's like a bouncer at a dance club. Who's just letting everybody in. And, and that's what happens when you damage. Your gut is your, you lose your barrier, and your gut becomes leaky. And maybe a hundred years ago or 500 years ago, that wouldn't have been a problem because our environment wasn't so toxic. But now we've the way that a cow proteins look we've changed the way cows eat. We've injected chickens with poisons or arsenic to make them grow bigger. We've genetically modified crops. So we could split, spray more, more herbicides and pesticides on them. And the protein structures of a lot of these foods have changed. Then not to mention all the lead and mercury and the mold and all these other toxins. All these things are flooding through our gut can flood through our gut and into our blood. And once something crosses that gut barrier and into the blood, now it's in your body and what's waiting is your immune system. And your immune system is waiting and identifying like, okay, this looks like a nutrient. This is good. Let's come on in. Or when it sees like, Hey, this looks like an invader. It attacks well, the immune system, when it attacks that creates inflammation. Now you've got inflammation in your blood. What happens with your blood? It goes everywhere from your head to your toes. And that's why I could take a hundred patients with SIBO or a food sensitivity or weeds growing in their garden, which is called dysbiosis. And every one of those people could have different symptoms because the inflammation got into the body, through the gut and then it can go anywhere. Speaker 1: And again, we're, as we're discussing functional medicine and addressing the root issue, we're starting to understand the major root issues are all the same for all of these chronic diseases. It's gut it's poor gut health and inflammation. And those two, as you just explained, go hand in hand. Speaker 2: Absolutely. Speaker 1: I know, I know you're really getting into this discussion and learning a lot and now the podcast is over. Okay. Don't worry. This is a two-part series. Next week, you will hear from Dr. Koz again, as we further dive into gut health and dig even deeper into the gut brain connection until next time, just know I love your guts. Bye y'all! |
