- it's such a pleasure meeting you again. so we met in berlinthis year and it's just really really nice that you take the time for this interview. - thank you so much for having me. it was so much fun to be in berlin. earlier paul jaminetfrom perfect health diet was one of the speakersat the paleo convention and i feel so grateful andlucky to follow in his shoes.
to be one of the speakersat the paleo convention and meet so many wonderful german friends. i actually had taken four years of german. - yeah? - in high school, but icouldn't remember very much, i could practice. (both women laughing) not even ordering food! everyone spoke so well so ihad, i was in heaven, yeah!
(both women laughing) - so now, it's the opportunityto refresh your german, so. - yeah (chuckling). - before we start, andbefore we talk about the gut microbiome and "scheisse", here, tell us a little bit about you, about your background,what got you interested in the field of,- sure. - microbiome and gut health.
so for my whole life sinceteenagers i was actually very chubby. and very tired a lot andi even had joint pains in high school and college. and my friends in pharmacyschool, they influenced me and i started running. and through running and justnaturally changing my diet to a lower carb diet i lost 50 pounds. i had gained a lot of weightafter my two children were born
and that was the most effectiveway that actually i lost the weight. and then i ended up losingthe weight pretty permanently. the last 10 pounds over theyears, like if i get stressed or when i develop gut problems,then i regain 10 pounds. - mm hmm. - i probably lost a lot of weight. i lost a lot of muscle probably. but i regained and lost it.
but i really got intomicrobiome health as i saw how diet and exercise could really affect someone's longevity. - and drugs weren't necessary. so even though i became a pharmacist, through seeing peoplemake, oh there's a kitty! (laughs) when i saw friends and clientsjust change their diets such as going grain freeso many immense changes
happened in health. - i observed people whowere in wheelchairs. they didn't need to stayin their wheelchair. they could walk again. just cutting out wheat andgluten and you know grains. yeah, and many peopleother than myself lost 30, 40, 50 pounds very easily. - and people who hadreally odd conditions like angina which is chest pain, heart disease.
or heart failure, you know,people who can't walk. they're so tired. their heart can't function anymore. they would have immenseimprovements in their health just simply by cutting out wheat. - yeah. - cutting out grains, yeah,and going slightly lower carb. so this became actually,i moved out of the conventional pharmacy field 'cause i found
this is just so compelling. and it brought me closer andcloser to discovering more about the gut microbiome. - that's interesting andthat you made the connection between all the healthchanges and the diet changes and the gut microbiome. that's, is it your trainingin pharmaceuticals? or? - probably, you know, chineseand european medicine,
many of them, and indianmedicine, ayurvedic medicine. - you know, always try topromote food as medicine. - the greek physician hippocratesmany hundreds of years ago said food is medicine. he also said that diseasestarts in the gut. and i believe longevity starts in the gut. - you know if you're interestedin living a better life or if you're an athlete. i work with executives, youknow, business executives
and endurance athletesand some mma fighters. and you know, they lookfor better performance. they want to think faster'cause that means money. or they wanna play better - yeah.- faster right? 'cause that means money. - yeah, yeah. and fame, reputation and youknow, everything for them that's their career.
and so i help them to get,like you, i do coaching and i help people toachieve that better edge just through diet and thencertain supplementation, and lab testing. the importance of the gutand the gut microbiome it gets increasingly accepted - yeah.- in the mainstream media. - especially, yeah, when thefecal transplants came out. fecal microbiota transplant (fmt)
it's amazing that evenmy physician friends and my pharmacist friendsthey would just be shocked that something's better than drugs. - it's actually just poo. and it could have 90,95 or even 98% efficacy. - a cure rate. and no drug that we have actually cures anything really. they may just put a bandaidon certain symptoms.
you know, one marker pressureof blood sugar may improve but it doesn't mean that itactually cures anything like diabetes or high blood pressure. - but for this infection,it was so effective that they can use somethinglike a donor stool, fecal matter, and it would work, like almost 100%. - in many cases, yeah. - it's for clostridium isn't it? - yeah, so it's for avery specific condition
which is caused actuallyjulia, by antibiotics. too much antibiotics. - is it? - cause this clostridiumto overgrow, yeah. it's the flex for the badbad clostridium and then they overgrow and moreand more antibiotics makes it worse. - oh. in your experience when you see a client
for the first time, whatare you looking for? what are your first steps? - well, i like to assess a couple things. three things. i assess their ancestry'cause that helps me to design a more customized diet. were their ancestors more european, - and northern european. were they living near the equator?
if they live more closer tothe equator their ancestrate may be more tolerant to carbohydrates. - okay. - so yeah, as an athlete. or if they require more, likeif they have more glycolytic activities, they maydo a little bit better with a little more carbohydrates. and okay, the second thingi assess is their gut. i do various testing.
i ask them a lot of questions, yeah. and also urine. - urine? - urine, yeah, and stool. - fecal matter yes, stool, stool sampling. and then the third, i assesstheir mood and fatigue levels. because that givesme a gauge on how their adrenal glands are. - in this day and age, even children have
low adrenal function. and they may even havecold hands occasionally. but many adults do. and that's the only thingi have, you know, negative about the low carb diet. - it can push that too muchand people develop cold hands. - yeah.- and then this compromises adrenal function, gut function actually. - yeah, and thyroid function.
so i assess that and thenwhen we design a plan together to address those factors. - mm hmm, mm hmm. do you think it's justbecause of the lack of fiber? or are there other nutrientsin the low carb or the lower carb diet? - well, with a low carbdiet, cortisol may be higher. - and if they cycle thecarbohydrates, i find that's a lot more effective.- mm hmm.
- and they don't, they don'thave those adverse effects. they don't have the bad effects. but when the cortisol ishigher or adrenaline's higher we do lose more mineralsso there is a higher mineral requirement. - the more someone's doinglike a ketotic low carb diet, minerals like zinc, magnesium,- yeah. - calcium,- yeah. - sometimes iodine,- okay.
- so all the trace minerals in magnesium are always helpful to supplement. if they're in, adrenal exhausting, i recommend a more moderatecarb diet temporarily and actually even salt.- okay. - especially if they havedizziness and then they don't have any problems with eating salt. but a high quality salthelps to improve the adrenal function.
and allows actuallybetter tolerance for carbs and everything else. - mm hm, mm hm. if someone would have tofollow a ketogenic diet, due to therapeutical reasons, are there some, what arethe most important things they could do to helptheir gut or to not change their gut. - two things, yeah, well three things.
exercise which always helps the gut. - okay.- and not overdoing it. but if they like to dohiit, that's all great. the other two things arereally particular for the gut. probiotics, like a really good probiotic. i found actually somereally good ones at the pharmacies in germany, many good ones. - really?- yeah, yeah. like one called "flora m" i think.
- it's actually by a drug company. but it had a lot of thestrains that i would, a lot of the bacterialstrains that i would use. and then some fiber, you know? - i love salad you know? but one cup of saladonly has like one or two grams of fiber.- mm hmm. - so occasionally ifthey're doing carbohydrate re-feeding, they may considera little bit of lentils,
or beans or brown rice. - or black rice, wild rice.- wild rice. - you know, a small amount.- mm hmm. - is actually about like8 to 10 grams of fiber. just a small like 1/3of a cup to 1/2 a cup. - but just leafy greenswouldn't be enough fiber in them?- well. yeah, you have to eatso much and ancestrally many estimates are thatthe ancestral human,
homo sapiens ate 130 to150 grams of fiber a day. and now in our industrialworld we barely get even to 10g! - and on the paleo diet,i think unless there is the cooked resistant starches, you know, it's usually10 or 20 at the most. - yeah, so it's hard to do that. but i developed somethingcalled bionic fiber. - and you can just takesupplements of different fibers to get up to 20 or 30 grams in addition
to what someone's already taking. - so a good paleo diet mayprovide 20 to 30 grams of fiber. - then you could supplementwith your product or some other fiber product. are there differences in fiber quality? is there anything one can look for? - yeah, the common onesare like organic psyllium, anything organic. organic acacia, that's awesome.
really good for ibs,irritable bowel syndrome. if someone has likediarrhea or constipation, psyllium is also verygood for both diarrhea and constipation, and weight loss. - so yup. - psyllium's been proven toactually help weight loss. and i use many other combinations. one that is particularlyreally good for sensitizing insulin comes from the konjac root.
- and it's called glucomannan,but it swells up 20 times so you must drink a lotof water and only use a teeny amount in the beginning. - yeah, okay. - you get used to it, yeah. you know more gas or problems, and yeah, must drink a lot of water. - only use it a small amount. like only half a teaspoon.
- for a big cup of water. yeah, 'cause it swells up yeah. actually children have died.- really? - eating the candy madeout of glucomannan. yeah, cause it swelled intheir throat or somewhere and it blocked their gut.- okay. very dangerous but there'sbig warnings actually when you buy glucomannan. glucomannan's really awesome.
- actually it's been shown toimprove insulin sensitivity and help with weight loss.- wow. - in numerous studies in humans, yeah. - wow, that's good (laughs). - it's a traditional partof the diet in i think maybe parts of russia, i think. and then the northern partof korea and asia and japan. - in fact, the centenariansand longer lived japanese, eat cone jack as a jelly.
- ah yeah.- 'cause they make noodles and jelly, and eat it everyday. - really? okay.- yeah and it's low calorie. no carbs.- yeah. - and low calorie. - i didn't know that it'sthat beneficial for the gut. wasn't it rare that?- yeah! super food.
- since you're mentioned it briefly, just a few minutes ago, resistance starch? is it something you would look into? is it something someone canor should even supplement? or what's your take on it? - well there's nosupplementation really right now on the market. and the best source iseating the whole food. don't eat raw, the raw's not ancestral.
every carbohydrate on earthis actually toxic (laughs). right? - yeah?- phitates, lectins, and particularly theyhave a lot of antitrypsin. they have trypsin inhibitors. they inhibit our own stomach acid. so the downstream problemof eating anything raw that's a carbohydrate isit not only may be fatal but it can cause pancreatic hypertrophy,
- mm hmm.- pancreatic adenoma, and other problems because digestion gets really severely disrupted.- yeah. - if it's eaten every day, yeah. but cooked starches are partof actually every culture. especially around the equator, yeah. and even parts of northern europe. i found out even northernasia, they had some grains, small grains that were eaten during
the paleolithic actually.- mm hmm. - legumes and small grains. but they processed them a lot. they soaked them inwater, they fermented them in water overnight or over several days. and sometimes even aftercooking them they would sour the starch. like the millet or bean and make it tangy. so actually like a lotof the german dishes,
i really like enjoy the sauerkraut. i didn't look into a lotof history but i wouldn't be surprised if somethingstarchy was soured. - yeah, yeah, yeah. so sourdough bread. so that's kind of,- well yeah, obviously the bread. yeah. but it has to be processedthe old-fashioned way.
- there are a few bakeries trying to do it the old-fashioned way. they sour it for 48hours and though i think, - mm hmm.- it should be better or beneficial to the, - mm hmm, yeah. and then some studies actually have found some sourdough bread isokay for even celiac. people who are really allergic to gluten.
but they have to be souredfor like 90 or 100 days. - oh, so long? - and then the bacteria,yeah the bacteria break all the gluten down.- oh?! - that's yeah. so, - you have to do it yourself. - yeah, yeah, or a companyhopefully will make it. but i like some resistancestarches if i'm working out
a lot.- mm hmm. - like i'll eat purplepotatoes, cooked purple potatoes and rice, brown rice. those are the just thingsi usually will have or cooked lentils in a chicken soup. - do you let it cool down? - you know, in asian medicineeverything needs to be hot. - okay.- 'cause it's the best for digestion.- mm hmm.
- and when you have optimaldigestion you make more acid. and when there's high acidproduction all those starches have more of a chanceof becoming resistant and becoming fiber. - but if we eat things cold,our digestion's not optimal. the enzymes don't work as well, right? even just one degree below37â°c, our digestion enzymes work maybe 1/3 to 1/2 as efficient. - yeah, like the pancreaticenzymes, the protein,
the enzymes that breakdown meat and protein, the enzymes that break carbohydrates. the enzymes that break down fats. they only work like much less, - okay.- if the temperature's lower. - yeah?- yeah, 'cause they like the body temperature.- okay. - 37â°c or higher, yeah. so i actually eat everything warm.
- i was just thinking. - unless i'm running around. - i was just thinking about forming of the resistance starch. i thought it's forms when riceis cooked and cooled down. - it is, its otherchemical way is with acid. so either eating it withsauerkraut where the acidity from sauerkraut affects the acid which, if you're already eating it in a meal,
- yeah.- no matter what, it gets all ground up and mixed. - yeah.- or, like after a salad with you know, vinegar and salad dressing. - mm hmm.- yeah. or someone just has,they're really healthy and they make a lot ofacid in their stomach. - yeah, yeah.- yeah. normally, you know how lowthe ph is in the stomach?
- around three or betweenone and four or something. - yeah, one, two or a three. so that's really quite profound. i used to work in a lab and my shirts, when i worked with ph 2would get little holes in it. just from,- yeah? - from the air.- really? - yeah, no splashing at all.- yeah? - just the air was so acidic.
it would make all thesetiny holes in my shirt. so it's really acidic andthat's why the stomach is so thick to protect against it. so we're meant to have a lot of acid but because a lot of peoplecan develop health problems they may not make as much.- mm hmm. - and then it's helpful totake some supplementation. - okay.- yeah. - you mentioned beforethat you had found some
good probiotics in thepharmacies here in germany? - yeah! - you make your own mixture? - yeah and we do ship to germany. yean, it's called bifido maximus. it's at our store at thegutinstitute.com. - you can have it in your footnotes. - i have it.- yeah. and we, it's such a great game changer.
people who have digestive issues, or even they're justathletes and they're trying to get better.- yeah. - we always view it, likepeople feel so much better on it, and their brain fog improves, and they have better mental clarity. body fat goes down also. we hear all the timepeople lose weight on it. it's crazy.
and people with any kind offatigue, they start to get slowly better.- mm hmm. is what, what's the bigdifference between your product and others on the market? i read that there are differentkind of bacteria strains and compositions, is it? - so it's formulated to belike what breast milk is. healthy breast milk. so if someone's hadantibiotics, or if their mom
wasn't really healthy. or they had a c-section birth,- mm hmm. - a surgery for their birth,- yeah? - they may not get all the strains their, you know their mom wouldhave handed down to them. so in other words, theydon't inherit the good flora from their mom, sosomewhere it's departed from what should happen from theancestral point of view. so we can replace that!- okay.
- so these are the main strains, yeah. found in a lot of breastmilk or what get transferred during a vaginal birth. - mm hmm.- and so it replaces kind of, and it's in ahigh enough concentration that they can actually enterthe gut and stay in the gut. in other words if they anchor. - yeah?- they can anchor, and stay in the gut.
- oh great! do you ship to europe? - i do ship to europe. i ship everywhere including sweden. because you know as longas it's not medicinal, - you know, everything's okay, yeah. so we can link to it onthe show notes to your website, to the gutinstitute for your shop to the probiotics.
we are slowly runningout of time and it's just so much to talk about (laughing). for all the people whocan't see you in person or can't visit you in california, - (grace laughing) how could anyone living ineurope, living in germany and austria get in touch with you? do you do skype consultationsand probably have some kind of course in the?
- yeah, so like you, we'restarting the online classes. so i'm so excited tohear about your classes that you're doing julie. that's so exciting, youcan reach so many awesome people and clients. and they can learn more aboutdiet and paleo lifestyles. so we're offering anonline class to help with gut health. it will address brain fog,bloating and body fat issues.
and we think we're gonna runit for about four months. and it's gonna startshortly in a couple weeks. and to find out moreinformation they can look at thegutinstitue.com. it's gonna be taught by afriend of mine and myself. torã©a rodriguez, she's an fdn coach. yeah, and we both have a lot of experience with autoimmunity as well. so we're very excitedthat we can roll this out
and have you know, more people. right now, my practice is actually full. - yeah (laughing). - 'till december, yeah. so this is anotheropportunity and we're just really excited to offer this. yeah.- yeah, sounds great! so it's just another opportunityto reach a lot of people. a lot more people than you could just on,
with one-on-one coaching. so it's so wonderfulidea and i think you will help a lot of people. - we hope so, yeah, it's really exciting. and we're gonna offer abefore and after gut test. - oh!- it's actually a european test to look atwhat's going on it the gut. yeah, so really excited. and these can ship allover the world as well,
yeah.- wow, awesome! - grace, thank you so much for your time. i really appreciated it. and i'm sure it was alot of good information and i hope a lot ofaustrian and german people are going to your websiteand visit your course because you're just an amazing person and really the gut goddess. (grace laughing)
- oh you're too sweet julia! i was just so glad to meetyou and your husband leonard at the berlin conference. that was so fun, it was soneat to meet so many people like so enthusiastic aboutthis awesome lifestyle. and whatever i can do tohelp the movement in berlin, in germany, in europe. i think, i feel such a pleasure to do so. thank you so much for having me on.
- wonderful, great. thank you.