Episode #26

Dr. Michael Ruscio

Fixing Your Gut Health And The Truth About Fiber and Bacteria

026: Dr. Michael Ruscio - Fixing Your Gut Health And The Truth About Fiber and Bacteria
For people with IBS, there’s a fair amount of documentation showing that high fiber and high prebiotic intakes can make them worse, and some impressive clinical documentation that lowering fiber can improve their symptoms. Click To Tweet

After “drink more water”, what’s the most popular advice you get when you’re trying to fix any digestive issue?

Eat more fiber!

It’s common knowledge that eating more fiber will help increase your gut bacteria, and more bacteria will make you healthier, right?

Surprisingly, no.

Recent evidence points to the contrary: more gut bacteria isn’t necessarily healthy, and in people with digestive issues, it’s extremely harmful.

So if eating more fiber isn’t the solution to all your gut problems, what is?

Today, Dr. Michael Ruscio joins me to answer this question and more.

Dr. Ruscio is a leading functional medicine practitioner specializing in gut-related disorders, a clinical researcher whose work has been published in peer-reviewed medical journals, international lecturer, and best-selling author.

He has dedicated his entire career to studying the gut and all the complex relationships that affect it.

His research led him to publish his best-selling book, Healthy Gut, Healthy You — in which he tears apart popular (and dangerous) gut health myths, reveals how your gut microbiota works and explains how to fix your gut health with an evidence-based approach.

The health of the host is very important in dictating the health of the bacteria. Click To Tweet

Your gut microbiota is a complex and still highly misunderstood network — and misinformation about what to eat only contributes to chronic gut issues.

In our chat, Dr. Ruscio clarifies how your gut microbiota behaves, what it needs, and what you can do to keep it balanced and thriving.

In this episode, we go over:

  • Why eating more fiber isn’t the key a balanced, healthy gut bacteria
  • Why people with digestive issues can benefit from eating less fiber, less prebiotic foods, and having lower gut bacteria
  • Why your small intestine is the most important region when it comes to gut health
  • Why small intestine bacteria overgrowth can wreck your health
  • The 6 types of foods to remove from your diet to lower your gut bacteria
  • Why the same bacteria strains can have different effects in different people
  • How your immune system influences your gut microbiota
  • How inflammation alters your gut bacteria
  • Why different parts of your gut microbiota need different types of bacteria
  • The complex relationship between lifestyle habits and gut bacteria
  • What a low FODMAP diet is
  • How a high FODMAP and low FODMAP diet affect your gut
  • How to use a low FODMAP diet to improve gut health
  • Why chronic high blood sugar can worsen your digestive health
  • Why too much testing in functional medicine is problematic and unhelpful
  • Why Dr. Ruscio believes testing is overrated
  • Why Dr. Ruscio decided to specialize in gut disorders
  • The multiple benefits of taking probiotics
  • The 3 different types of probiotics and which one to pick
  • How to take probiotics in the long-term

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