Episode 67: Transcript

"Healthy aging takes guts. Literally." -- with Maya Gangadharan

Doug French: We're on. All right. I'm glad to return to our guest format.

Magda Pecsenye Zarin: I know. Me too! Well, and I thought that this was a good one. It was a lot of fun to record for sure.

Doug: Oh, yeah. She's a hoot. Yeah. She's got personality to burn and knows a ton about what's going on in your belly. So all good.

Magda: Yeah, exactly. So today we talked to Maya Gangadharan. Basically, she went through a certification program in how to heal your gut biology. I don't know very many people right now our age who are not having some kind of stomach problems of one sort or another.

Doug: Are you having stomach problems?

Magda: Well, yeah, but I mean, mine are related to “in these unprecedented times.” Mine are related to current events. I did have gut problems a few years ago, I think, especially, I mean, here we go, right? How many minutes in? Perimenopause and all the hormonal changes do cause problems in people's guts, right?

Doug: Under a minute. Excellent. That's well done.

Magda: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Doug: Well, I've been just drinking a ton of water and since Robert's been here, we've been doing yoga in the morning. Man, does that help.

Magda: I'm sure it does. I'm sure it does help your gut also, right? Like anything that stimulates your core does help with your gut.

Doug: So this gut health thing was incredibly useful to me just because there's more to life than just drinking eight gallons of water a day. Although that helps. Yeah.

Magda: Some of the eight gallons of water that you're drinking each day could be in the form of bone broth, which Maya did mention.

Doug: Yeah, but I've tried bone broth. I don't care for it.

Magda: It's bony. That's why.

Doug: I mean, I get the protein bursts and everything else, but yeah, I don't dig the bony.

Magda: I mean, the whole thing with it is that it's getting the minerals out of the bones. So, you know, when you just make a regular stock, right? You just put in the carcass of whatever, the bones. And then you simmer it and, you know, maybe you've put some vegetables or herbs or whatever in it. But when you make bone broth, you need to put acid in it so that it really gets all of the minerals and enzymes and stuff like that out of the bones themselves.

Doug: And what do the bones look like when you fish them out of your broth when you're done?

Magda: What do they look like?

Doug: Yeah. If you've added stuff to turn the bones into goop. It's an episode of Creepshow. Yeah.

Magda: Because, you know, of course, I went through a phase of making bone broth, just like I went through a couple of phases of making kombucha, right? Like all in. And this is part of how I figured out that my Uncle Tim had ADHD. You know, we would find an entire setup for making beer. And then right behind that would be an entire setup for like growing chrysanthemums. He just had 8,000 hobbies that he didn't maintain. He just went all in on them for a little while. And I was like, “oh, this looks familiar.”

Doug: I mean, I get it for everything I've done once and gotten bored. You know, I get it.

Magda: Yeah. So I went through a bone broth phase and what I realized was that when you make bone broth out of chicken bones, it gets really gelatinous in the collagen and it's really delightful if you like that. When I was doing the beef bone broth, I could not stand the smell of it cooking. And I think that for me was the beginning of the end of my time of eating beef. Because I just couldn't, like when it's food and it's not appetizing to you, you're not really long for it.

Doug: Which is why I saw the whole episode as license to eat more sauerkraut and kimchi.

Magda: I think that was exactly what it was, right? They do different things for you, bone broth and fermented foods, but yeah.

Doug: And you know, up to my Adam's apple and yogurt around here too. I eat a lot of that stuff. And the berries are supposed to keep me from going nuts.

Magda: Berries keep you from going nuts?

Doug: They aid in memory, as I understand it. There's a lot of research it says blueberries.

Magda: Oh, so they keep you from being forgetful, not from going nuts. Your cognitive status.

Doug: Yeah, well, I guess, yes. I mean, I guess the nuts aspect is unpreventable, what can you do,t but at least you're tasting blueberries on the way down.

[Theme music fades in, plays, fades out.]

Doug: Okay, we're here. We're on. It's all being played out for someone to listen to.

Maya Gangadharan: If we're lucky.

Doug: We've gotten some good interaction on these. I'm really happy with them, you know?

Magda: Well, people like to know stuff. I think that's...

Maya: Imagine that! The inquisitive nature of the human mind.

Magda: Right. Totally. So we're here talking to you today, Maya, to talk about gut health and specifically gut health in your 50s and what's different about gut health and why you need to like start paying attention to it if you weren't paying attention to it before. Yeah.

Magda: And I'm going to start with a humdinger of a question, which I've always wanted to ask. but I've never asked before, why do we call it “gut” health? Why don't we just call it stomach health, digestive health? Like, why “gut”? Is it because it's like a punchy, onomatopoeic word?

Maya: Yeah, I don't know if I have a definitive answer for that. But I think a lot of people talk about like, you know, gut instinct, listen to your gut, trust your gut, your gut instinct. So maybe it's just like a kind of a colloquial shortcut, like nickname, that people like better. “The stomach” is kind of cumbersome. I don't know. I do hear people talk about “digestive health,” but I think maybe digestive health feels a little bit more you know, like, clinical. And you know a little bit more relatable than just talking about your gut, you know like beer gut. That's my theory

Doug: Then you'd have to talk about gut biscuits.

[awkward pause]

Magda: What are gut biscuits?

Maya: That's new on me.

Doug: No, digestive biscuits.

Magda: Ahhh!

Maya: Ohhh!

Doug: I'm a big fan of digestive biscuits, and so you need to keep those separate because, I mean, all that other gut stuff, doesn't that emanate from where the word gut came from, essentially?

Maya: Yeah, I mean, I think digestive biscuits are a British thing, so I don't know.

Magda: Yeah, I think so. I don't think your American audience is going to get that joke any more than Maya or I did.

[Maya and Magda laugh cruelly]

Maya: A swing and a miss!

Doug: Anyone out there who hasn't had their hobnobs this morning is missing out. [Magda and Maya continue laughing] Are Hobnobs good for your gut? There's a good starting question.

Maya: I'm not sure I know what those are, but I'm guessing they're not ideal.

Magda: Hobnobs are just a different kind of British biscuit. You know how the digestives,I really like digestive biscuits because they kind of taste a little almost like graham crackers. They've got that... And Hobnobs do not. Hobnobs are much more like, have you ever had Galletas Maria?

Maya: I have not.

Magda: The Maria crackers? I think they're the same things. They're just like... They're like a slightly sweet but crispy. Yeah,

Doug: They've always reminded me of kind of a super crispy oatmeal cookie with a side of chocolate dipping, which is whole.

Maya: Okay.

Magda: Oh, yeah, you can get them dipped in chocolate.

Maya: Yeah, I mean, chocolate, I'm always in for that, so.

Doug: Where do we find you, Maya? Where are you located?

Maya: You can find me on my website, which is intrinsicorigin.com. That is also how you can find me on Facebook or Instagram. I actually have a business page on Facebook under that name. And then there's a group Intrinsic Origin, which is probably what I would recommend.

Doug: This is all great and we were going to get to that, but I actually was asking where you are physically.

Maya: Oh, where I am physically. Oh, I am in Southeast Michigan. I like to say if you're familiar with the area that it's about halfway in between Ann Arbor, Michigan and Toledo, Ohio.

Magda: Okay. So let's start with what's your actual title, integrative nutritionist?

Maya: I am a functional nutritional therapy practitioner. Okay.

Doug: She is functional. Yes. That's the important point. Are you a high functioning functional?

Maya: Just barely functional at this point. Anyway, my certification comes from the Nutritional Therapy Association, which is located in Olympia, Washington. And I chose that program because it is very functional. So when we say anything that's functional is really looking more at the foundational causes of illness within the body and the how we can strengthen those foundations so that we're not just chasing symptoms endlessly, which is a lot of, unfortunately, what Western medicine does. It just says, how can we suppress these symptoms instead of going, okay, these symptoms are actually information. These are a signal that something's going wrong. So in my school, we look at the five foundations: digestion, blood sugar balance, healthy fats, hydration, and nutrition.

Doug: So that's interesting. You went right to the Western medicine moniker. So how would you characterize your influence in terms of how you treat people? How much of it stems from your Western training? How much of it comes from a more Eastern approach?

Maya: I mean, I don't have Western training because I don't have a medical degree. I didn't go to medical school. I didn't go to nursing school. I am not a registered dietitian or a clinical nutritionist. So I can't take medical insurance. I can't authorize people to do blood work or that sort of thing. Now, I come from a Western medical family. My father was a cardiologist and my mother was a nurse. And I think that Western medicine is great at diagnosis. It's great at testing. And it's great at dealing with emergency situations. Like if you break your arm, you should go to the ER. You know, if your appendix is about to burst, you should go have surgery. You know, if you... And if you have a really advanced pathology, like if you have cancer, you should look at what Western medicine can offer you. I think you can also be supported by a more functional and holistic approach in terms of nutrition. But, you know, Western medicine is good at some things and it's really not great at other things. It's terrible at prevention.

Doug: Well, there's no money in prevention, you know.

Maya: Yeah, I think that's probably got a lot to do with it. Yep.

Magda: So what made you decide that you wanted to do this? Like, were you feeling really sick and you wanted to get to the bottom of it? Or was it just like you felt like everybody around you was having issues?

Maya: I was definitely having issues. I was having pretty terrible issues. In fact, this was about six months, maybe before I started my nutrition school. And I was having awful gut issues. I mean, I remember I was on the road for my automotive training job. The client happened to be on the road with us. And so we all went out to dinner together. And I remember leaving that dinner and thinking, “oh, God, please let me get back to the hotel room before something bad happens.” Because it was one of those things where I didn't have to use the bathroom when we were at the restaurant, but in the car on the way home, all of a sudden, you get that feeling and you're like, oh dear, this is not good. At that point I had cut out dairy. I had cut out gluten. I was trying to eat as quote unquote clean. I was just so paranoid because everything I ate would either blow me up like a balloon or go through me in a very unpleasant way, you know, way too quickly. So I was pretty desperate at the time because, you know, I would be in the middle of a training session and what are you going to do? Like if all of a sudden you have to make a dash for the bathroom, that's not a really easy excuse to make, especially not in front of a classroom of car salesmen. I mean, come on, that was like my worst nightmare, you know? Or I'd be gassy and I'd be like, okay, can I crop dust this? How am I going to manage that? Because I can't leave the room. But there's only so much control that you have over bodily function.

Doug: I was told that women don't fart.

Maya: You were lied to, my friend. Luckily, a friend of mine had been going through gut issues a little bit ahead of me. And she had tried this particular dietary approach. And she was like, listen, it worked for me. And I was like, okay, at this point I'll try anything. And I did go through the protocol. It took me about five or six weeks to get through it. And at the end of it, I mean, my gut problems went away. I lost weight, which I wasn't expecting at all. That wasn't why I was doing it. And the oddest result of it was that my PMS symptoms went away. They just like evaporated. It was very strange. And at the time, I didn't really understand sort of how that all connected. But a few months later, I started my nutrition school and, you know, through the next nine months or so, I started to kind of get a picture of, okay, this is why these things are all tied together. So that's where my interest began.

Doug: Did you ever formally diagnose what it was you had and did you figure out what the cure was or was it just one of those, I no longer have this problem scenario?

Maya: I mean, I never went to get a, like a formal diagnosis from a doctor. My understanding from, you know, my nutritional background is that I had something that's called leaky gut, which is fairly common. It's certainly not uncommon, but And the protocol that I use, which is called the GAPS diet, and it was actually designed by a British doctor, Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride. She is both a neurologist and a nutritionist. She's double certified because she's an overachiever. And she developed the protocol to help heal leaky gut because it was something that she was dealing with in her patients. And as I've learned more about things like food intolerances and inflammation and how those relate to leaky gut, it's made a lot of sense to me.

Doug: So in your practice, what would you guess are the most common symptoms that people come to you with, especially people our age? And how do you narrow down what it could be and what steps they should take to alleviate whatever problems are going through?

Maya: Yeah, I actually have a comprehensive gut health analysis that I give to people. And so that sort of helps me start to narrow it down. But for many people, it is a leaky gut situation. And leaky gut, the simplest way you were talking about villi earlier.

Doug: I was.

Maya: Without getting too scientific.

Doug: Was that impressive?

Maya: It was. It was very impressive. Leaky gut is something that occurs when the lining of the small intestine becomes irritated. When that happens, the cells who normally are in charge of making sure that only food particles that are properly digested get into the bloodstream, they start to kind of lose their grip, literally. I mean, I always think about it as like playing a game of Red Rover. I'm now dating myself that I'm a person who grew up playing Red Rover, but-

Magda: I think kids still play Red Rover.

Maya: Okay, good. I'm glad. So with Red Rover, you know, your whole line of people, they're holding hands and you're trying to keep that person from the other team from breaking through, right? This is what the cells of your gut lining are trying to do. They're trying to keep the bad guys improperly digested food particles or bacteria and pathogens from breaking through that line and getting into your bloodstream because if they get access to your bloodstream, then they can wreak havoc. When your gut lining gets irritated, then it's almost like their grip gets weaker and they can't hold that line as well. And so now those improperly digested particles or bacteria or viruses can now break through and they can get access to the bloodstream. And it does in fact cause a whole lot of havoc in different ways. And so what you have to do in that case is calm down that inflammation, and there could be a number of things that are causing that inflammation. Certain pharmaceuticals are inflammatory and can irritate the gut. Our old friend stress. There's a reason why when people are under a lot of stress, they all of a sudden get diarrhea. I mean, that's pretty common. Food allergies. If you're eating something that you're allergic to or you're intolerant to, that will also irritate your gut lining because 80% of your immune system is located in your gut. So you've got to kind of figure out how to calm down that inflammation so that those cells can get a grip, literally and figuratively. Those bonds can get strengthened again.

Doug: Well, that's the stat I was going for. Yeah, because I think of the two things that I think surprise people when you learn how important they are, even though they seem so peripheral, one is your teeth. If you encourage problems with your teeth, that's going to spread and screw up everything. And the second is your gut, is your GI tract. And then it leads to, you know, you get IBS and Crohn's. And that's why I'm so glad to talk to you about this, just because I know, especially as our guts are slowly decaying in our 50s. And, you know, I know I'm old because when I watch television, I get ads for people my age and they all talk about probiotic health.

Maya: It's so rude. It's just rude, really.

Doug: Well, I mean, they're trying their best. I mean, I'd rather be marketed to, you know, for something that I would at least have a peripheral interest in because I know I'm headed there.

Maya: Yeah, that's fair.

Doug: So when you talk about maintaining probiotic health and maybe strengthening the lines of defense that you've talked about, where's the first thing you think of?

Maya: Yeah. So when you talk about probiotic health, that's a little bit farther south. So one of the things that we say in my training is that digestion is a north to south process. And the northernmost part of the digestive process is actually your brain, right? Because if you pause right now, you think about, you know, you're walking into your favorite bakery and you're smelling the bread or you're smelling the croissants or you're smelling-

Doug: This whole episode is going to be rich with metaphor. I'm already enjoying this. Please keep it up.

Magda: You guys know that I'm listening to Ina Garten's memoir.

Maya: Oh my God.

Magda: On audiobook right now. So I've been hearing all about the bread.

Maya: Yeah! And so Magda, my question for you is when you're reading about bread, what physically is happening in your body at that point?

Magda: Oh, I'm getting the desire for it. I'm starting to salivate. I'm getting this like, oh my God, I got to go make some bread or I got to figure out where I can get a decent croissant in this area.

Maya: And so the salivation part of that is evidence of how digestion starts in the brain. Because the minute you smell food, see food, or even think about food, your body starts to go, oh, oh, we might be getting ready to digest something. We better get a head start because digestion is a really, really energy intensive process. So one of the things that happens to us as we get older and really not even as we get older, because it happens to us at any age, is that we are more frequently eating under stressful conditions. Like how often have you eaten in the car on the way somewhere? People say, oh, I've been doing a working lunch. you know, or everyone's eating in the meeting. And the problem with that is, and this is a really, really easy thing to remember, is that when stress is on, digestion is off. Because like I said, digestion is a very, very energy intensive process. And if your body registers stress, our bodies are very zen. So your body is very much in the moment and it's going, oh my God, if I'm threatened, what do I have to do to stay alive in this moment? If your body registers stress, you know, we have sort of a very primitive part of our brain that interprets that as, oh, my God, my life is being threatened. Well, if your life's being threatened, your body doesn't want to waste any energy on digestion because digestion isn't going to help you survive whatever threat you're facing. So it shuts down digestion. But it can't tell the difference between you getting cut off in traffic while you're eating something in the car and you getting chased by a bear. RIght?

Magda: Right.

Maya: So whenever you're stressed, your digestion is going to be adversely affected. Your body shuts down acid production. It's, you know, dulls the production of insulin from your pancreas. It just slows or shuts down everything digestive. So one of the best things you can do to start out is to sit down at the table. Don't watch whatever, you know, stressful television, don’t watch the news, right? Because something's going to happen and you're going to be screaming at the television and take three deep breaths before you eat or even say grace. Grace is a beautiful tradition that helps you slow down, you know, if that's in your culture. That's a great way to go. Now, to your point, Doug, as we get older, the natural process of aging is that cells die and they don't get replaced as quickly or they don't get replaced at all, right? Well, as we get older, the cells in our stomach lining that produce hydrochloric acid, which is stomach acid. And yes, that's exactly the same thing that you used in your high school chemistry class. HCL is stomach acid. You just don't make as much of it because those cells start to die off. So that makes it even more important for you to eat in a calm, relaxed state so you're not shutting down whatever stomach acid production that you have.

Doug: So is there any way to replenish the acid or do you just react to the fact that there's less of it?

Maya: So there's a couple of levers that you can pull. One is that you can start to use digestive bitters. And yes, this is very similar to the bitters that you use in a cocktail. In fact, the aperitivo or aperitiv is a particular type of cocktail that was designed to be enjoyed before dinner because it had those bitters in there to stimulate the digestion and the appetite. If you're in your 30s and 40s, even if you're in your 50s, that's where I would start. You can find digestive bitters. The only thing I want to caution people against is don't use Swedish bitters. Because they contain an herb called senna. Senna is used to relieve constipation, but if you use it too frequently, it becomes addictive. We don't want that.

Magda: Do you basically just lose your ability to have motility without the senna?

Maya: Yeah, because you get dependent on the senna to do that for you.

Magda: Man, those Swedes. First with the Midsommar movie, and now with the senna. But okay, so basically, I could have a phony Negroni every night before dinner, and that would be good for me.

Maya: It would be from the perspective of encouraging your digestion. Now, if you have a lot of blood sugar problems, you might not want to have, you know, alcohol, you might want to make sure you're having,

Magda: Well, I'd be having a phony Negroni, I'm trying to stay away from alcohol as much as possible, because I just can't handle it anymore. You know, the entire world knows I'm fully into menopause now, but since I went into perimenopause, I can't drink like I used to. But the phony Negroni is a beautiful thing. Tastes just like a Negroni without the booze.

Maya: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that would be a way to do it, but you can just get, you know, like I have a dropper of bitters. Urban Moonshine is a company that I like to get my bitters from when I'm feeling fancy. And I just drop like three to five drops on my tongue 15 to 30 minutes before dinner because it gives your digestion a little bit of an on-ramp, so to speak.

Doug: So should we establish here that everyone's an individual and there are very few blanket treatments that will work for everybody?

Maya: I always say that you have to be your own personal science experiment. I mean, there are some fundamental truths, you know, like humans need water to live. You need healthy fats to have healthy cells. I mean, there are certain fundamental truths, but, there is a certain amount of fine tuning that goes on. For example, the next lever to pull would be to get digestive HCL supplements. Like you can get tablets that are powdered HCL and you can try that if your digestion is still feeling really slow. Like if it's like three hours after you're done eating and you still feel full, you'd probably don't have enough stomach acid. Now, what's interesting is there are people out there that are like, oh, but I've been on the purple pill for five years because my doctor told me that I overproduced stomach acid and so I need to suppress stomach acid. Back in medical school, doctors are taught to call the stomach the acid barrier because hydrochloric acid is excellent at digesting protein. The good thing about that is that prior to things like pasteurization and refrigeration and modern food safety rules, if you ate something that had like bacteria or pathogens in it or viruses, all those are all protein. And so they would be destroyed, i.e. digested by the stomach acid before they were able to get into your body. So sometimes I'll hear somebody say, well, I went to a wedding with my whole family last night and my mom was fine and my dad was fine, but I thought I must have food poisoning because I had diarrhea. And I was like, yeah, but if you were eating the same thing as everyone else, it's more likely that either there's something in there you're intolerant to, or you didn't have as much stomach acid. And so maybe there was a little something in that, right? Because there might've been something in that food and everybody else had the

robust stomach acid that killed it and you didn't.

Magda: Are the doctors trying to say that because you're having heartburn or agita or whatever you call it, that that is a sign that you have too much stomach acid?

Maya: Correct.

Magda: Oh oh oh!

Maya: That's the assumption that they make, but they rarely test for it. They rarely do a test to see if you're actually overproducing stomach acid. And the reason that's actually dangerous, to my mind, is that there are some diseases that cause you to overproduce stomach acid, but they also have other symptoms, first of all, and they're fairly serious. But in many cases, what's happening is people don't have enough stomach acid. And what's interesting about the body is that if you eat and the food in your stomach has not been properly acidified, there's a valve between your stomach and your small intestine that doesn't want to let it through. It's like the bouncer, only instead of checking IDs, it's checking acidity level. And if your food isn't acidified enough, it doesn't want to let it through because it knows that at this acidity level, there probably could be bacteria, pathogens, viruses that haven't been killed. And it doesn't want to let that into your body and where it can have access to your bloodstream. Like I said, super Zen, right?

Doug: Do you know what the name of that valve is?

Maya: It's the pyloric valve.

Doug: That's exactly it! That's the valve that Ignatius Riley has such trouble with in the Confederacy of Dunces.

[Magda laughs hard]

Maya: That's a certain percentage of the audience is going to get that right.

Doug: That's one of the best novels ever and I've read it a billion times and it's the pyloric valve. It's the thing.

Maya: That is the answer for sure. Now, eventually, of course, the pyloric valve is going to have to give in and let food through, even if it's not properly acidified. But in the meantime, what can happen is that food backs up your esophagus, right?

Magda: Right. Because if it can't go one way, it goes the other way.

Maya: And it might not be acidified enough to get through the pyloric valve, but it could be acidified enough to burn your esophagus and cause that heartburn.

Magda: That makes so much sense because, you know, babies spit up a lot when they're a couple of weeks old and, you know, parents always worry about it. And what the answer is, is that the valve at the top of the esophagus just isn't, that muscle is not completely developed yet. But it's interesting that in adults, if it can't go one way, it just goes the other.

Maya: Yep. People can legitimately have GERD. which is in effect what's happening to that baby. Somebody can have like a hiatal hernia, but the instances of that happening do not match up with the amount of people that are being prescribed these PPIs,

Magda: Yeah. Well, I had GERD a couple of years ago. I had COVID and it just caused a cascade of bullshit with my immune system. I got everything that came down the pike. That was when I got shingles. That was when I got, you know, like 45 viral infections, like, you know, all this stuff. And there was something that I ended up having to go on antibiotics for and antibiotics then caused GERD. Yeah. And so my doctor was like, it's just an imbalance in your system it'll go away if you can hang on. I can prescribe you a pill. And I was like, no I know how to get rid of this, I'll just eat a shit ton of leafy greens and like go back to timed eating, and it'll resolve itself. And it did in about four days.

Doug: In the universe of illnesses, Magda, you are just this big catcher's mitt

Magda: It was so eye-opening to me when I got COVID and I got so sick after it for nine months. Like just, it wasn't long COVID per se. It was just, I got everything else that happened.

Maya: And I mean, somebody could be prescribed a PPI, proton pump inhibitor, for a short amount of time. But when they first came out, it would say right on the packaging, you're only supposed to take this for two weeks. If you've been taking it for 10 years, I mean, for women, this is especially a concern because minerals need a very, very acidic environment to be broken down so that they can be assimilated by the body. So if you're a woman and you're like worried about osteoporosis, you should be concerned about being on a PPI long-term because it's almost guaranteeing that you're not going to be able to digest and assimilate the minerals that you're ingesting. And most of us aren't eating as many minerals as we should because the minerals aren't in the soil. They're not in our food and they're really not in our soil anymore. So it's a concern.

Doug: Well, that's what I wanted to get to, because I think when you treat someone, there's layers, right? The first thought is be as preventative as you can, be as natural as you can, just eat well, exercise, drink a ton of water. I know when I drag myself out to do any of those things, I feel better, especially in the gut region. So when you talk about normal preventative maintenance that a 50-year-old can do, but as far as universal practices, what do you think the best ways to prevent the symptoms? Or to maintain your healthcare.

Maya: I always tell someone, if there's a food that you think you could never give up, I am very sorry to tell you that you're probably intolerant to that food. Because part of the reaction to a food that you're intolerant to is your immune system kicks in, right? And so you get a little hit of cortisol and adrenaline, which feels good, right? It's like you get goosed, you get like a little buzz.

Magda: It's like when you're in a relationship with somebody that's horrible for you and it's constant conflict and adrenaline and it's that trauma bond, right? People think that they're in love with the person because it's just constant adrenaline of bashing against each other. And if you finally break up and come to your senses or if the person leaves or whatever, you feel this huge sense of loss.

Maya: Yeah.

Magda: Let me just ask you this. Why not just go buy a probiotic and start taking a probiotic? Like you can go to Costco and get a big pack of probiotics and just take one every day. Doesn't that solve everything?

Maya: You absolutely can. And it won't.

[Magda and Doug laugh]

Maya: A couple of things. I mean, it's a tough thing to talk about because A, people want a simple solution. You know, like you watch these ads for like Bioma and Seed and like all of these things and all of these women who are saying like, “All I did was start taking this probiotic and I lost 25 pounds and then this happened and that happened.” And I'm like, okay, if it were really that easy, then everyone would be doing it and everyone would be having those results. Right.

Magda: Well, and also I think some people do get amazing results, but also I think those are the people who are eating, like, nonstop, super processed food that is putting them into like a zombified state. But I think most of us who feel like we have any kind of health issues, or, you know, the clocks running out or anything like that are trying to cut down on all that. So like, I'm not coming into this on a diet of Big Macs, right? Like I'm coming into this eating mostly whole foods.

Maya: Right. There's a couple of things to talk about. First of all, there have been some decent studies that show that people with different health outcomes do have different microbiota, like different types of combinations and numbers of different organisms living in their guts. Like they have just different worlds. That research is legit. The research around how effective taking probiotic pills is is not as definitive. You have a lot of research that's being conducted by the actual company that's producing the actual supplement. And so that's difficult. You also have a wide variety of quality that's out there. You know, when you take a probiotic, you have to kind of look at how many different strains are there? How many CFUs are there? Because you want to have a high enough number of living organisms so that they'll actually be able to colonize. But there's another whole different piece of it, which is the food that you eat influences your microbiome, you know, certain beasties in there like different kinds of food. So if you're eating a lot of grain, then the guys that like grain are going to populate. So if you're going to take a probiotic, but then you're, you know, what I call, like, a junk vegetarian, and all you're doing is you're eating like fettuccine alfredo, you're not going to really make any headway. So what I recommend to people is find a probiotic that has many strains. You're going to want at least five, you know, five to 15 different strains because variety is better. You do want to have something that has high CFUs in the millions, but you also have to balance that by, like you said, Magda, eating whole foods because these, you know, what ends up taking root in your gut depends on what you eat. A lot of us have gotten away from eating fiber because we're so phobic of carbs, but you do need to be eating fiber to have a healthy microbiome because those little guys in there, they survive on insoluble fiber, the fiber that you can't digest. Our parents used to call it roughage, right? That's what these guys eat. And they use that to make good stuff in your gut, like serotonin. They make vitamin B12.

Doug: We're talking like steel cut oatmeal. We're talking about cruciferous vegetables. What kind of stuff?

Maya: We're also talking about spinach. We're talking about broccoli. We're talking about, you know, butternut squash. We're talking about spaghetti squash. Like there's so many things that you can eat before you go to grain. I only say that because a lot of people are intolerant of grain. That's another thing for people that have gone like super, super keto, super low carb that haven't been eating a lot of fiber, you can't just overnight start to pour a ton of fiber down your gullet because you don't have the microbiome to deal with that. And you're going to get a lot of gas. Like you're going to have to work your way up to being able to eat the amount of fiber that's healthy for you. You're going to have to go low and slow. And we don't like that as human beings.

Magda: But the carbs that we're supposed to be cutting out don't have that much fiber in them anyway. Realistically, right? I mean, it's like a glazed donut. [Maya laughs] We're not losing any fiber from not eating those glazed donuts.

Maya: Nope nope nope.

Doug: Well, it sounds like what you said before, where each of us is an experiment. I just know I started drinking kombucha and I feel a lot better. And that might be just an individual thing. But it's an experiment that I performed and it worked out.

Maya: Yeah. I think that eating/drinking fermented foods. So kombucha is a fermented food. Yogurt is a fermented food. Kefir is a fermented food. Sauerkraut is a fermented food. You know, kimchi is a fermented food.

Magda: Miso.

Maya: Yes, exactly. I think that eating a wide variety of fermented foods is maybe even a better idea than just taking a probiotic pill because you're getting a variety of different strains. They're being carried through the body in food. And this is how our ancestors got their probiotics for hundreds of generations. I think also go freaking dig in the dirt. You know, I mean, there's a reason why kids that grow up on farms who are digging in the dirt and who are playing with animals and farm animals have healthier guts because they're just exposed to more different types of these little beasties, as I call them, that get into your system. I mean, obviously you've got to be careful nowadays because you don't want your kids to go digging around in like, you know, pesticides or things like that. But we are antibacterializing ourselves out of some healthy immune system boosters.

Doug: Well, that was a big thing, right? Don't get antibacterial soap because all you're doing is kill the bacteria that your body essentially needs to live.

Maya: You're killing the good guys. Yeah.

Doug: Well, I'm going to speak as a man because men, as we know.

Magda: Because you are a man?

Doug: I am. Yes. I just got my renewal slip in the mail the other day. As a man, I know a lot of men, their first thought is you need to react to something visible in order to seek medical help.

Maya: Mm-hmm.

Doug: And especially when it comes to GI issues, a lot of men would just say, that's something that I can handle on my own. I'll just drink a tub of Pepto-Bismol and sleep it off or walk it off or whatever. [Maya groans] So I guess for the benefit of any men listening and any women out there who love a man, what type of symptom should a man look at seriously and think, this is not something I can handle on my own. This is something that another person needs to look at.

Maya: I mean, obviously, if you are finding blood in your stool, that doesn't have to do with you eating beets recently, you know, in the last 48 hours.

Doug: Which is a big. That's a big one. Yes, exactly. If I had a dime for every time I've forgotten I had beets last night.

Maya: It's terrifying. It's terrifying. I still do it.

Doug: Can I just say, by the way, this is also apropos of nothing, but we talk about the reaction of stress. Magda was talking about diarrhea.

Maya: Mm-hmm.

Doug: And I've read a lot about how reacting to a new situation, a new job, a new relationship causes constipation.

Maya: It can. And this has to do with how the nervous system ties into the digestive system. So diarrhea is in alignment with a nervous system that's sort of overactivated. That is what we would call sympathetic. But if you're in a parasympathetic or like a dorsal vagal, like you're kind of in like a shell shock kind of nervous system reaction, that's where you get the constipation. Because your body is in such an agitated state that it's almost going into like power save mode is sort of a very simplistic way of talking about that. And that's when things can slow down. You know, your nervous system also affects your gut health. Because again, this gets back to what I talked about earlier is that if your body doesn't think the world is a safe place, it's going to affect your digestion because it is so energy intensive.

Doug: Now I have to leave this in because all I was going to say is that Robert installed a bidet two days ago and I have not had the need to use it yet. And I'm concerned.

[Magda laughs]

Maya: Ideally, you're going to the bathroom, you're emptying your bowels once a day. If that's not happening, I think that's a concern because you're not clearing things out, you don't have healthy function. So what I would look for there is hydration. A lot of times when people are constipated, I will tell them to increase their vitamin C and increase their magnesium because a lot of times those are things that can kind of stimulate that rather than doing some kind of laxative. I had constipation issues all the time when I was a kid growing up. And I was really able to balance them out by getting the proper amount of vitamin C. And this was actually something that my doctor taught me. The dosage is going to be individual. But what you do is you take 1000 milligrams, I would take it before I went to bed the next day take two. The next day, take three. And you're going to keep taking it until if you're constipated, right? This is what you're going to do. Until you get diarrhea. And then you're going to back off by 1000 milligrams. And then that's going to be your correct dose for vitamin C. Magnesium is often helpful as well. And I like using magnesium because if you're constipated because of stress, magnesium also helps your body manage stress. So you're kind of, you know, you're giving your body something that it obviously needs anyhow. Now, some people will get an upset stomach from magnesium. The particular brand that I like is called Smidge because it doesn't tend to give you diarrhea, which is what can happen to people with magnesium. And I would be concerned about, people don't understand that if you're intolerant to a food and you keep eating it, you're increasing your risk of developing some kind of autoimmune disease. Autoimmune disease is on the rise. We do see it more in women, but it's also applying to men as well. And the problem with food intolerances is that every time you eat a food that you're intolerant to, you juice your immune system. You cause your immune system to deploy as if there is some kind of bacteria or virus. So if you keep doing that and you keep deploying your immune system over and over again, just like a military unit, your immune system is going to start to get strung out because it's always running into the enemy, right? And so after a while, what happens is your immune system goes crazy and it starts targeting your tissue in your body. So for example, gluten and casein look a lot like your thyroid tissue. So if you're constantly eating gluten and dairy that you're intolerant to, you're training your body to target your thyroid gland. And eventually one day, you're immune system is going to turn around and look at your thyroid gland and be like, that's the enemy and start attacking it. And now you have Hashimoto's thyroiditis. And once your body decides that tissue is the enemy, it's pretty hard to turn that off. You know, you can, there are, you know, part of what I do with my gut health program is to help people figure out what they're intolerant to stop eating it. Start figuring out some anti-inflammatory foods and practices and things that you can do because you really then have to make your whole life about cooling inflammation because inflammation is the underlying similarity in so many chronic diseases. You know, we're seeing it in diabetes. We're seeing it in heart disease. You know, we're seeing it places that we thought had nothing to do with inflammation.

Doug: I want to thank you for kind of keeping to the question I asked before I derailed it with the whole bidet thing, but, I think you mentioned a few things to be aware of. Like, I mean, short of a searing pain in your abdomen. I mean, I understand migraines are a big symptom. Just something as mundane as a lack of energy.

Maya: I mean, joint pain is an inflammatory response. Migraines are an inflammatory response. Skin issues are an inflammatory response. And it's very unusual. It's very unusual for somebody that's having inflammatory symptoms to not have some degree of leaky gut because something is causing that immune system to go wacko. And it's very common for it to be your digestion is weak. So things are getting past the Red Robin chain into your bloodstream and riling up your immune system and just pouring gasoline on the fire of inflammation. And as we get older, unfortunately, we just have more viruses in our body. Like when you get a version of the flu, you get over the acute expression of that, but that doesn't leave your body. That virus does not leave your body. It just goes dormant. Right. And so when your immune system is challenged, then those viruses can kind of, you know, poke their little heads out. And now the immune system is going to go after them again.

Doug: And bird flu is back.

Maya: Oh, for God's sake. I don't even want to talk about it. Then we lose our estrogen and then our hormones for women take a dive and we lose all that anti-inflammatory benefit and then things get really crazy. So there you go. Good times.

Doug: All right, Magda, that's teed up for you. Go ahead.

Magda: I mean, I think like everybody knows that your hormones plummeting for women causes all kinds of problems. And everybody who listens to the podcast knows that I think that men's hormones are plummeting. And just because their symptoms aren't acute enough for them to go to a doctor, we don't understand that. I believe that men are going through a form of menopause for themselves that is harmful to them and that is causing a lot of the things that they end up dying of, but we just haven't started studying it yet because they're not suicidal like perimenopausal women are.

Maya: And that is something that will tend to catch your attention for sure.

Magda: Yeah, so have you read the, what's his name? Bredesen? Dale Bredesen, End of Alzheimer's?

Maya: I haven't read that.

Magda: He's like a hardcore lab researcher guy. He thinks that Alzheimer's isn't one thing. He thinks that it's a whole bunch of different things and that there are types that you can have. And you can have one or multiple types. And there are different treatments for a lot of them. But the primary type he thinks is a result of inflammation.

Maya: Mm-hmm.

Magda: He's got a book that's like The End of Alzheimer's Plan. And I thought, oh, this is just going to be like telling me like what five foods I should eat. Oh, my God. No, the entire thing is like eight zillion scientific citations.

Maya: Lifestyle overhaul.

Magda: Way above my pay grade. But he also has seen in his lab with treating people, he's seen people with pretty advanced cases of Alzheimer's regain ground. By going on his protocol. And so that to me was very helpful because I feel like, you know, I mean, I'm already slipping, like, you know, not to say that I have Alzheimer's, but my grandmother died of it. My dad is diagnosed with it right now. So I absolutely have this genetic predisposition toward it. And the idea that not only could I prevent it, but that people are coming out of it.

Maya: That's actually one of the things the keto diet is good for as a therapeutic diet, where they've seen that you know, when you have what they are calling Type 3 diabetes or Alzheimer's, that if you can get into ketosis, that your brain cells that are no longer responsive to glucose because of their dead to insulin, they get ketones and then they start to come back a little bit because they regain sensitivity.

Magda: Right. Yeah.

Doug: Wait. Alzheimer's is Type 3 diabetes?

Magda: That one type of Alzheimer's is called “Type 3 diabetes” because it's insulin resistance.

Maya: Yeah. ‘Cause your brain cells cannot take in glucose anymore for energy because they're resistant to insulin.

Magda: Yeah. So his whole diet plan is a plan to get you back into insulin sensitivity instead of reactivity. So it's kind of a, it's like a, plant-based keto.

Maya: Okay. Yeah. It's interesting. One of the things the founder of my nutrition school says is that blood sugar balance and digestion are the center of gravity of nutrition. Like if you can dial those two things in, you are going to stave off so much degenerative disease. And of course we live in a culture that makes it really, really hard to do both of those things, you know? Right.

Doug: We're getting to the crux, the idea that 80% of our health emanates from keeping things at the center.

Maya: Yeah, 80% of your immune system is actually in your gut. And this is why it's interesting because when you're intolerant to a food, there are these cells called memory cells. And their job is that once the body has identified a particular particle as an enemy, their job is to remember what that particle looks like. And when they see it again, then they go all through the body and they like go, “yo, that guy's back, we got to take care of him,” right? Well, memory cells live between two and seven years. So there are some people that will say if you can completely give up a food, for two years, which is not easy to do. You might be okay because the memory cells that recognize that particular particle have died. You can sometimes try that after two years, but again, you have to have been perfectly strict. So it's tricky. Food intolerances are nasty. And the funny thing is, as we get older, we're more likely to develop food allergies and food intolerances because, again, our immune systems are already fighting so many more viruses and pathogens and bacteria that are just sort of laying in wait that our immune system is a lot easier to rile up, unfortunately. So, yay, we're getting older. Woohoo!

Magda: Yeah. We're just set so much higher. Like our estrogen goes down and that puts us into a higher state of inflammation than we were in before anyway. So then of course, anything else that we put on or in us is going to just make us even more inflamed.

Maya: Yep. Sets it off.

Doug: You've been treating clients for how long? You've been saying about 10 years?

Maya: 2016, I would say. I graduated sometime in 2016. So yeah.

Doug: In part, due to a sense of self-preservation, you wanted to diagnose what was going on in your own body. Clearly, there must have been some amazing things that you learned that you didn't expect that you would never have anticipated.

Maya: I think the most amazing thing, I think, is this idea that the body is so zen. And that at any given moment, it's trying to do what will keep you alive. The tricky thing is what it's doing in the moment to keep you alive can sometimes have negative downstream consequences. And so, for example, when we talk about having high cholesterol or having cholesterol deposits in your veins, well, that happens because a blood vessel has become weakened, right? That is literally your body spackling over a weak blood vessel, which is good because if you burst a blood vessel, you could...

Magda: Bleed out!

Maya: Yeah. Like that would happen. And that could happen really quickly. And, you know, nowadays, hopefully you'd get to the hospital in time and they'd be able to find it in time and they'd be able to do whatever they do. But, you know, the human body doesn't know that. Right. And so it's doing something in the moment that's maybe saving you. But over time, you get a blocked artery and, you know, now you've got you know, heart disease and other problems that are going to be more difficult. I mean, the example of blood pH, it's very important that your blood stay in a very, very narrow pH range. And if it doesn't, like you're going to die. But to maintain that blood pH, what the body will do is it'll go find minerals somewhere else. Well, guess what a big store of minerals is in your body.

Magda: Your bones.

Maya: Your bones. Yeah. So, you know, again, we don't want osteoporosis, but our body is like, well, yeah, but like right now I need minerals to balance your blood free age. So I'm not worried about that.

Doug: You know, in that same vein, I know a lot of people our age are also struggling about eating on the fly, eating at different times. What is the ideal amount of time minimum to put between your last meal of the day and the time you go to sleep?

Maya: Digestion generally takes two to three hours from you putting in your mouth to it working its way out of you. So it is best to give yourself a two to three hours in between meals. You know, some people do well with intermittent fasting and some people don't. And there are lots of reasons why that can occur. And that's a whole nother conversation. But one of the things that people find when they do intermittent fasting is that their inflammation goes down. And that's because digestion is always going to be an inflammatory event. So, you know, it's beneficial to give your digestion some downtime so that you can have that inflammatory response to digestion kind of cool down a little bit. It also helps your blood sugar. If you're eating like five, six meals a day, every time you're eating, you're having an inflammatory response of some kind, and you're having an insulin response of some kind. And the inflammatory response is, you know, riling things up and the insulin response is potentially creating cells that are becoming more insulin resistant. So one of the first things I encourage my clients to do is to just eat three meals a day. I do like it if people can do an overnight fast of 12 hours, because again, it just gives your digestion a rest and it gives your body a chance to do all the things that it needs to do overnight that aren't digestion. You know, like stop eating three hours before you go to bed. So that when you go to bed, your body is done with digesting. And then overnight, it can do all the things that it needs to do to detoxify your system and like help your brain rest and, you know, equalize all these body systems and all these hormones. You need energy to do that. You know, and if you're for three, the first three hours of that, if you're still spending energy on digestion, your sleep is not going to be as restorative.

Doug: See, and I'm still coping with the idea that digestion is an inflammatory act. I never put those two together. I mean, how would that manifest itself? Magda, I'm actually curious what you think. Have you had an inflammatory reaction to eating something?

Magda: So everybody's had like a stomach ache when you eat something and there's just something off or something weird or wrong about it. And it's an inflammatory reaction and it's just, there's something wrong inside there. But I mean, it makes sense to me that digestion is inherently an inflammatory act because it's getting your cells all riled up to do something, to do a job.

Maya: And I'm not talking about like it's inflammatory in the sense of, you know, out of control, right? Inflammation. Inflammation is actually a healthy response in the body. We need inflammation.

Doug: Right. Over-inflammation is the issue.

Maya: It's our inability to de-escalate inflammation, to anti-inflame our body that we get into. So I'm not saying that it's wrong that digestion is an inflammatory experience. I'm just saying that if we know that it is, let's let it run its course and do its thing and give it a break before we throw more food in when we're not even done digesting yet. Right. Right.

Doug: Right. I was just thinking more along the lines of just as Alzheimer's runs in Magda's family, I have a lot of arthritis in mine and I've been counseled more than once to avoid nightshades, including tomatoes, because those will inflame my joints. And that's a genetic thing, I'm assuming.

Maya: So what I would tell you to do to test for that, to make sure that that's the case, is I would tell you to give up nightshades ideally for 30 days, but at least for two weeks. And then you're going to add them back in very systematically. So like maybe the first week back, you're going to try to have some tomatoes. Maybe you don't have to do it after every meal, but like at the end of the day, jot down how you feel. Do you feel more arthritis? At the end of that 30 days, you'll have a new baseline for your symptomology, right? If that really isn't inflammatory food for you. And so it actually usually isn't that hard, you know, to notice once you've given up a food for a month and if you eat something and you're truly intolerant or allergic to it, you're going to notice it, you know, because we normalize these inflammatory reactions. This is why elimination diets are actually the gold standard, even above and beyond all those bazillion food intolerance blood tests that now you can just do home. Because the problem is, symptoms of intolerance, sometimes they don't show up for two to seven days after you've eaten that food. And to get an accurate blood test, you have to be in that right window of your response. And you may not be in that correct window. If you get through a week and you feel the same, then maybe you add peppers.

Doug: I was going to say, how soon until I can go to my customary chugging of a bottle of habanero sauce every night?

Maya: I mean, what you want to do is test one food a week, right? Yeah.

Doug: Oh, yeah. Well, that's I think every person our age needs to understand that their body is an experiment. It's about developing a sense of individual agency, testing things out, recording what the response is, working with your doctor if necessary. I'm actually enjoying the prospect of testing out what stuff like, should I cut out coffee? I still drink a lot of coffee and I know that has as many, you hear there's adverse effects and there are salutary effects and you got to balance it.

Magda: The Alzheimer's guy says don't cut out coffee.

Maya: Okay. Because it's a stimulant?

Magda: No, because of whatever's in the coffee beans.

Maya: Oh, interesting. Okay.

Doug: And I'm sure for every person who says coffee is necessary, there's another who says coffee is death.

Maya: Well, and people get overwhelmed because there's so much information to sift through. And then they get frustrated because their doctor is just going to be like, well, eat whole foods and don't eat blah, blah, blah, blah. Because doctors don't know.

Magda: Doctors don't get any more about nutrition than they get about menopause. Like maybe an hour tops.

Maya: Most medical schools, if they offer nutrition, it's an elective and it's like a 12 week course.

Magda: Well, and it's probably like “vegetables, good, donuts, bad.”

Maya: I spent nine months studying this stuff, and then I still study on my own.

Doug: Get out of my head, Maya, because my next question was, as you're developing your client base, there must be a galaxy of other studies out there that you might want to link into that would dovetail with what you've learned so far. Is there another branch of nutritionism, dieticianism that you want to go into?

Maya: Yeah. In the last few years, I think I've gone more into the autoimmune side of it. And so I think that's kind of where a lot of my mind is. In fact, this 90 day gut program that I work with, you know, that is an aspect of it where I'm like, okay, we're going to calm down like the IBS symptoms, but then we're also going to take a look at your 360 degree inflammation, because the truth is, whole body inflammation is going to increase your gut inflammation. So if we heal your leaky gut, but you're having all this other inflammation in your life, eventually your gut's going to get inflamed again. And the leaky gut then is feeding your whole body inflammation. So I think this whole world of inflammation is really kind of what I'm diving into because it really does feel like the universal equation. Like it really feels like something that's really foundational, because we're all freaking busy. You know, we need to make the best use of our time. And I think dealing with inflammation is a really great thing to put your attention on. And a big piece of that is gut health. But a big piece of that is also blood sugar. And now, as I am, you know, perimenopausal, now learning the hormonal component and how hormones contribute to inflammation and anti-inflammation, it's blowing my mind how all these things are connected to inflammation.

Doug: I would bet there's like a ton of epiphany moments in terms of like studying this and thinking it's completely unrelated and then all of a sudden, boom.

Magda: Yeah, yeah. You're getting Doug very interested in this topic in a way he wasn't before.

Maya: Yeah. It's hard to find something that's just like a standalone thing anymore when it comes to like, you know, it just doesn't exist. Yeah.

Doug: Well, we're all just ramshackle jalopies just kind of pushing it across the finish line.

Magda: Speak for yourself. I'm not a jalopy. Yeah.

Maya: I'm a rickshaw.

Magda: I'm a go-kart, if anything. Okay, so you have clients who work with you one-on-one, but you also mentioned a 90-day program. What's your 90-day program?

Maya: Yeah, I have a 90-day program that's specifically focused on gut health, and it's specifically for women who can relate to that first story that I told about being at a business meeting, a business dinner, or on a date or something, and having that moment where you're like, oh, crap. You know, I'm going to have to be

Magda: Literally.

Maya: Yeah, literally, like I'm going to have to run to the bathroom and I don't know how long I'm going to be in there. And I don't, this is going to be embarrassing and difficult and that sort of thing. And it's a combination of two gut healing protocols that I've used that are combined in a way that sort of gets the best out of both of them. And so what happens is we start by calming down that gut inflammation so that you're not in distress anymore.

Magda: Well, that's good.

Maya: Because you can't solve any other problems if you're in a crisis situation.

Magda: Right, right. It's like you can read all this stuff, but if you're running to the shitter every five minutes, that's no good.

Maya: No, you can't live like that. You cannot. I tried and it sucked. So we need to arrest that ASAP. And then once we've got that calmed down so that you're not suffering anymore, then we start to figure out, all right, what foods are not your friend? You know, it's funny, I had somebody say, oh, can you heal my gut without having to give up any foods? And I'm like, probably not. You know, like, I'm sorry.

Magda: They just wanted you to tell them which brand of probiotics to go buy.

Maya: Yeah, exactly.

Doug: Just drink more cocktails with bitters in them.

Maya: Right. That's part of the program.

Doug: I'm going to make an old fashioned as soon as we're done.

1:01:41

Maya: And then we put together a plan so that you can move forward. And I even do what I like to call my Restaurant Recon. Cause I definitely lived my life on the road, eating at restaurants every night. And I had to figure out like, what can I order that's easy and simple and still tastes good so that I'm not feeling like I'm doing a math equation every time I go out. You want to be able to have a social life again, because for a lot of people who suffer from IBS, they just lose their friends and family because they're so embarrassed. They don't want to say yes to an invitation or they can't go on a road trip because they're going to have embarrassing moments. And so it's really designed to get people to the place where they can start saying yes to life again, instead of having to say no.

Magda: Wasn't that Jamie Lee Curtis's slogan when she was advertising the pooping yogurt? Say yes to life again.

Maya: Wow. I wonder if that somehow was like subliminally.

Magda: I don't know.

Doug: I actually think it was “say yes to life with Depends”. I think that's what it was.

Magda guffaws: Even funnier. Wow.

Maya: I call the program Ditch Your Digestive Diva. So maybe there is a little bit of Jamie Lee Curtis, you know,

Doug: Can we just salute the resuscitation of her career, by the way?

Maya: Yes!

Doug: She was just doing pooping yogurt five years ago, and now she has an Oscar. I mean, come on.

Maya: Yep.

Doug: God bless you, Jamie Lee.

Maya: She's living the dream.

Magda: Okay, so is the 90-day protocol something people can just jump into anytime? Or is it like a synchronous thing where you're having like-

Maya: Right now, it's a one-on-one program, but it will graduate very soon into kind of an evergreen group training where people can jump in. I mean, they can jump into it anytime now because it is one-on-one. So yeah, whenever they're listening to this, they can just jump on my website, intrinsicorigin.com, or if they want to send me an email at news, N-E-W-S, at intrinsicorigin.com. They can get in touch with me that way. I also have a workshop that I'm teaching periodically that kind of talks about some basic tips, some of the things that we've talked about here and gets a little bit more into the program. So I can get them plugged into one of those workshops as well.

Doug: As we've stressed throughout this whole thing, just the more we learn about the chassis, the more we realize, any opportunity you have to concentrate what limited time you have on one of the most vital and kind of underreported parts of your body, I think is really important. So I'm really glad you came on to talk about this. I learned a ton. I'm going to learn another ton because finding health advice, it's a challenge. You have to have an open mind and recognize that advice is going to clash and the internet means nothing now. So you really have to reach out to people, you know, and like, and trust to build a regimen that can, as I say, drag the jalopy across the finish line. And no, I'm not talking about you, Magda.

Magda: You know what I'm finding interesting–

Doug: You're more like a 2007 Accord.

Maya: That's actually a compliment. That's a great car.

Doug: I meant it that way. Yeah.

Magda: I used to think that all this health advice was conflicting, but then I realized that the health advice that was reputable had certain threads going through it. And they may disagree on specific details, but there were these threads like, you know, I'm reading this book about the anti-Alzheimer's thing, and it's every single thing that Maya said is exactly what this guy said about it for something else. Right. And every other thing that I've seen for like the last five to 10 years that has been reputable is the same stuff that Maya and the Alzheimer's guy is saying. So I think part of it is just figuring out how to sort through and see like who's full of it and who's not. And the ones that are not full of it are all going to converge in certain spaces and maybe just are going to disagree about small details. Right.

Maya: I love the way your brain works, Magda. Like you always see the system behind everything.

Magda: I do. I kind of can't help it.

Maya: It's very useful.

Doug: She was born with the matrix, with the little green characters dropping down in your cranium. I think so.

Maya: Thank you so much. This was really great. You guys are a really fun duo to talk to. So thanks for all your great questions. I appreciate it.

Magda: I'm glad.

Doug: I hope there were good questions. I mean, they came from the gut.

Maya: There you go. That's like the perfect place to end it.

Doug: All right. I'm going to go institutionalize myself. And anyway, well, thank you all for listening to episode 67 of the When the Flames Go Up podcast with Magda Pecheniazarin and me, Doug French. Our guest has been certified nutritional therapy practitioner, Maya Gangadarin. Say that 15 times fast.

Doug: Listen to what she has to say and watch out for a leaky gut. When the Flames Go Up is a production of Halfway Noodles LLC and is available on all the usual platforms and at whentheflamesgoup.substack.com. Please subscribe there for our weekly episode every Wednesday and our newsletter, Friday Flames, which comes out every other Friday. Thanks again, eat well, and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye.

[Theme music plays]

Maya: Yay. Hopefully you can patchwork that into something coherent. I feel like I was all over.

Doug: Oh, it's my favorite thing.

Magda: He's a great editor, especially of his own tongue twisters.

Doug: Oh yeah. Half the crap I take out is me just being an idiot. I love that.

Maya: I wish we could all have that in real life.