 Foods that surprisingly help reduce stress. All right, stress is something we all deal with. And when it comes to stress management strategies, you've probably heard it all. From meditation, to exercise, to yoga, to journaling, and doing more of what you love. But I'm not going to talk about any of that today. Today I'm going to share a stress management strategy that very few people know about. Taking care of your gut microbiome. Now, your gut microbiome is really the largest important organ in your body that finally is getting the love and attention it requires. For years we literally didn't know that the gut microbiome existed, number one. Number two, we didn't know that there was such a thing as the gut brain connection. And number three, we didn't know that a lot of our food choices and the way our food is prepared and treated was actually negatively impacting our gut microbiome function. So I want to take you step by step where we can maximize what's going on with our gut microbiome. All right, what is the gut brain connection? Well, we've expanded that. We've known for years that the gut makes neurochemicals, important neurotransmitters that affect mood. We've known that for years. But the revelation of the gut microbiome is the great amount of these neurotransmitters feel good hormones like serotonin are actually manufactured by the gut microbiome and then absorbed through our gut wall and transmitted to our brain. We also know that there's a whole host of other neurotransmitters that are called gasso messengers or gasso transmitters that are manufactured by the gut microbiome that impact our anxiety, our depression, and that most of the things that are antidepressants that circulate in our bloodstream and anti-anxiety agents, we now realize are coming from the gut microbiome itself as a messaging system. So imagine if your gut microbiome is all out of whack that you got a lot of gang members in there and not a lot of gut buddies. It's no wonder that we could have increased anxiety and depression just because the messages have become changed from, if you will, aggressive messages to from calming messages. So getting that balance in check is incredibly important in our stressful lifestyle. Now the other interesting thing, it goes both ways. Not only can leaky gut, porosity of the gut, cause actual bacteria to get into us, and quite frankly, if we're under attack by bacteria, your body takes that as one of the most stressful events that it can possibly deal with. Imagine that that is happening 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and you get an idea of how underlying stressful leaky gut is. The other thing that's important to realize is incredibly life changing stressful events can have the effect of causing leaky gut in and of itself. I have a number of patients with leaky gut and autoimmune diseases who can literally trace the day that their problem started. It may have been a sudden loss of a loved one, it could have been a divorce, it could have been a job that was lost, or any of those events. I've even seen it in supreme athletes who have had incredibly challenging athletic contests which caused their leaky gut to start in the first place and then went on to have multiple episodes of depression and anxiety. Don't discount the anxiety and depression that you're hearing from athletes, particularly at the highest levels of athletic competition, that this may in fact have been the stress causing the leaky gut that started this in the first place. Other thing that's fascinating that I've alluded to before but it's well worth mentioning again. We've known for a number of years now that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is capable of killing gut bacteria. It was actually patented as an antibiotic. It interrupts a hilariously sounding pathway in plants and bacteria called the chikamate pathway. Now not all bacteria use the chikamate pathway but new research has uncovered that bacteria that make these important neuroactive compounds like the anti-stress hormone serotonin take tryptophan and its precursors which are present in many of the foods we eat, who hasn't gone to sleep after a big turkey dinner and it was because of the tryptophan in the turkey making you sleepy because of serotonin and GABA production. But interestingly new research shows that glyphosate attacks those bacteria and prevents them because of blocking the chikamate pathway from taking the precursors for serotonin and other neurotransmitters and making the final product. The sad thing is you could have a tryptophan rich diet and you could have turkey every day and yet you won't get the benefit because the glyphosate has eliminated the middle man converting this into the active compound. And let's remember that glyphosate has only been around for about 40 years and glyphosate is now present in almost every food that we eat and it's another reason I urge you whenever possible to stay away from grain products which have been sprayed with glyphosate and if you have to eat organic vegetables and organic fruits because of the presence of glyphosate same goes for our wines most wines in America contain glyphosate because the fields have been sprayed with it between the vines look for organic or biodynamic wines and you'll be much safer. So there's a whole host of reasons that we should pay our attention to our gut rather than to external factors that are making this miserable. Okay so what does food have to do with all of this? Well for starters we're eliminating lectin containing foods which are a major cause of leaky gut in the first place is a great place to start and those are the grains and the pseudo grains. Following a lectin free diet is the number one thing I use in my clinics to repair a leaky gut. Now when foods support friendly bacteria you're then going to have all these friendly neurotransmitter compounds made so feed your gut bacteria what they want. Those are fermented foods those are the cruciferous vegetables those are inulin containing vegetables like asparagus like garlic like the radicchio the Italian red lettuce that you now see in the stores which is not a lettuce. Brise, chicory, okra. Try my okra recipe that's baked in the oven you you'll never go back. Intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting changes our gut bacteria for the better so meal skipping is another really easy way to alter our gut bacteria. Okay finally what about supplements for stress? Well certain supplements can be very useful when it comes to reducing stress but it's kind of like taking a Tylenol for a headache instead we really need to spend our time fixing the root issue and the root issue is in our gut. Still if you do want to try a supplement try ashwagandha or kava or 5-HTP which is the precursor for making serotonin in our gut and if you'd like to know more about this topic watch episode 81 on the Dr. Gundry podcast where I chat about this issue with Dr. Aiman one of America's leading psychiatrists and who's really come around to be interested in the role of the microbiome on mental health. Last but not least I want to mention that occasional stress is perfectly normal. However if your stress levels seem to be taking a toll on your day-to-day life I strongly encourage you to consult a mental health professional. There's absolutely no shame in getting help. The next episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast is waiting for you now. Many of you know one of my favorite sayings is more bitter more better. Studies of long-lived people show that they have a love for bitter foods.