Do you have IBS symptoms? Learn how these chemicals can impact our gut 👇 Phthalates are a group of chemicals that are widely used in many of our products. They are used in plastics to make them more flexible. Another example is they’re used in personal care products to act as a binding agent for scents. Why is this important to address if you’re experiencing IBS? Because they can potentially impact our gut microbiota. One study found post natal exposure at “doses comparable to human exposure were capable of modifying the gut microbiota” (PMID 27301250). When our gut microbiota is impacted, it can lead to increasing pathogenic strains which in turn cause those digestive symptoms: bloating, constipation, indigestion, nausea etc Another study found exposure to microplastics contaminated with phthalates “significantly increased intestinal permeability & enhanced intestinal inflammation” (doi 10.1016). These studies both indicate the ability of phathlates to potentially contribute to leaky gut and irritable bowel syndrome symptoms. Phthalates are also known hormone disrupters and have been shown to be obesogenic in animal studies and linked with obesity in humans (The Obesogen Effect, Bruce Blumberg). If you have chronic digestive issues such as bloating, indigestion, constipation, nausea, gas, etc, consider looking into avoiding these environmental toxins within our water supply, plastics and personal care products. Work with a qualified practitioner on removing known sources, adding in a gut healing regimen with a nutrition focus, and supporting your body’s ability to detoxify. Need help? Book a free 15 minute consult, link in bio.

We have to get back to lifestyle changes as part of treatment plans! 🌱 Typically what has brought us to a point of chronic symptoms was a disconnect from something our body needed. Lifestyle work should always lay the foundation. I work with clients experiencing chronic gut issues. Often times they had been placed on numerous supplements before giving the body a chance to adapt to any lifestyle changes first! We know nutrition, stress, trauma, environmental toxins lead to disrupting our gut. Let’s start there and work our way forward. See what has brought that symptom to persist. Have any questions? DM me!

Heavy metals in our drinking water 💧 Heavy metals can disrupt our body’s ability to detoxify, create oxidative stress, and disrupt our gut microbiome (doi 10.1021). 🤯 Symptoms ranging from brain fog, fatigue, gut issues, even type 2 diabetes arise from heavy metal exposure (doi 10.1093; Diabetes Spectrum Volume 15) By inducing oxidative stress, this can induce a number of functional changes in producing bile & secretion (Annals of Hepatology Volume 7). Bile is one of our body’s main ways of clearing toxins! It also helps us to digest fats and absorb fat soluble vitamins. Issue with our bile production/secretion can lead to digestive disorders. Now I’m talking low dose, chronic exposure over time. Which is what we typically find is these “toxic burden” symptoms arise after we have been exposed over a period of months/years. Then they exceed our body’s ability to eliminate them, resulting in above symptoms and/or conditions. Why am I bringing this up? 👇 It’s important to me to bring empowerment to you, because if you are having any of those symptoms and feel you’ve exhausted all treatment options: look to water supply and products that are contaminated with heavy metals! Reducing your exposure by choosing better products & getting a quality water filter can be a tremendous help 🙌 Steps I would take: 💧 Look at your county’s water quality report 💧 Choose a filter that will get rid of those contaminants 💧 Also choose third party tested products such as protein powders and mushroom extracts that are know to accumulate those heavy metals. DM me for any questions! Link in bio for 1:1 consults.

Do you have symptoms of “leaky gut”? Then keep reading 👇 Leaky gut is a term otherwise known as increased intestinal permeability. We have a blood gut barrier to protect us from what gets access to our blood, and ultimately leading to circulating in our bodies. What can occur is a break in the gap junction proteins that keep the cells connected in that blood gut barrier. When that break occurs, we become exposed to absorption of toxins and bacteria. It can also reduce our IgA levels, which is our “surveillance team” at the gut lining. Therefore we have a lowered immune response and pathogens are more likely to invade and cause health issues. So what can cause this to occur? 1️⃣ Stress 2️⃣ Unnecessary/overuse of antibiotics & medications 3️⃣ Underlying infection (SIBO, H Pylori) 4️⃣ Dysbiosis: imbalance in gut microbiota … and the least talked about one: environmental toxins! Chronic low dose exposure to heavy metals, BPA, phthalates, pesticides have been linked to altering our gut microbiota. Many of these are found in products we are using, eating, and drinking. I say this not to scare you but to bring awareness, and empowerment because once we have the knowledge… we can take steps to reducing our exposure! Need help in formulating a plan? Reach out through a free 15 minute consult or DM me here with any questions. Happy to help! Link in bio for consults, subscribing to my weekly newsletter & YouTube channel. 🌱

What’s in our bathing water?! 👇 Todays episode on Toxin Free Tuesday, we’re going to dive into why you should be aware of what’s being used to disinfect your water. While public chlorination is great for getting rid of biological contaminants such as salmonella, giardia, and E. coli, it produces a by product called trihalomethanes when it combines with the natural organic matter present in water. Trihalomethanes are carcinogenic, and unfortunately since chlorine is volatile (meaning it easily vaporizes) this means that while we are taking a hot shower, we end up inhaling and absorbing this through our skin. Chlorine may disrupt our gut microbiome as well, by altering our gut flora (PMID 26186212). Reducing our exposure to these chemicals is important! Our bodies are made up of 60% water, and it’s an essential nutrient for us. It also aids in detoxification by supplying our kidneys, one of our main detox pathways. Aside from nutrients and food, I always look to water as another potential mechanism for reducing my client’s toxic load & supporting their gut health. A water & shower filter is definitely something to consider! Link in bio for a free 15 minute consult 🌱

How to support our gut and liver 🫶 Both of these do SO much for us. They are both big pathways for our body to excrete inflammatory molecules and toxins. What we ingest 👉 gets excreted through bile. While we are eating, our gallbladder secretes bile to help us digest. Bile is a huge mechanism for our body to excrete toxins, and it’s critical for digestion/absorption of fats & fat soluble vitamins. Our liver actually synthesizes bile. Not only this, it’s one of our biggest detoxication pathways! Toxins that enter our body go through different phases to ultimately get excreted through: our waste, urine, or sweat. Sulforaphane is amazing at supporting phase 2 of our liver detoxification by: inducing the necessary enzymes and providing the antioxidants to support (doi 10.1021) If you are experiencing any of those overburdened gut/liver symptoms: 1️⃣ Look at gut health and address any necessary treatments there (leaky gut, bacteria overgrowth, infections) 2️⃣ Work with a qualified practitioner in supporting gut health, and the necessary nutrients/antioxidants needed for liver detoxification pathways 3️⃣ Reduce stress (ie meditate/breathwork) 4️⃣ Remove what caused the issue in the first place: environmental toxins, inflammatory foods, stress, reduced gut motility, etc 👉 Link in bio to book a virtual consult! Starting with a free 15 minute consult to discuss your symptoms.

Toxin free Tuesday topic: BPA 👇 Otherwise known as Bisphenol A. There are over 40 different types of Bisphenols, but Bisphenol-A is the most well known. When I work with my clients, this is one of the first places I start. Bisphenol has been strongly linked to altering our gut microbiome, by significantly reducing species diversity in the gut microbiota (PMID 27554980). Why is this important? The number one predictor of overall health (especially gut health) is a diverse microbiome. Many studies have shown the metabolic disrupting effects on liver and pancreatic functions (PMID 27554980). Our liver is one of our biggest detoxification organs, allowing us to filter through many environmental chemicals. Our pancreas produces digestive enzymes and regulates our blood sugar. The good news… 😅 is that BPA doesn’t build up in the body, and can typically clear from the body within a few days. So by doing your best to avoid Bisphenols, you can avoid it circulating within your body! Having gut issues? Fatigue? Blood sugar issues? Start with avoiding this chemical and in diverse, colorful plants. If your detoxification pathways are open, consider infrared sauna therapy. Studies show our sweat contains BPA (PMID 22253637). My favorite saunas are linked in bio. Need help with resolving your gut issues and fatigue? Book a free 15 minute discovery call with me, also linked in bio.

One of the first questions I get asked when working with clients 👇 “What probiotic should I take?” Before we even get into probiotics, let’s talk about WHY diversity is important. Many gut issues and inflammation symptoms arise from lack of diversity among our gut bacteria. Chronic disease starts with the gut microbiome. There should be between 300-400 types of gut bacteria, and the average Westerner has around 115-120. The more we have a decrease in diversity, the less good gut bacteria we have to fight inflammation. We also see a significant loss in those critical microorganisms! Specific key strains that support our body, fight inflammation, and keep our gut healthy. Lastly, due to this dysbiosis (loss of balance within the gut microbes) we see it breakdown those tight junctions causing “leakiness” and allowing toxins to sneak out… further adding to this inflammation cycle. How do we fix this? Well, the goal isn’t to start a probiotic pill. Unless you know there are specific strains you are trying to increase, most probiotics have only a small amount of strains but high quantities of them. It’s not helping much on the diversity front. 🌱 Start removing environmental toxins & inflammatory foods 🌱 Work with a qualified practitioner on repairing the gut through specific foods and herbs 🌱 Once gut symptoms are resolved, repopulate the gut with my favorite probiotics: NATURE, kimchi, sauerkraut, coconut kefir. Do you have unresolved gut issues? Link in bio to set up a free 15 minute consult to discuss your symptoms!

Environmental toxins can sadly disrupt our gut health 👇 Are you experiencing any gut symptoms such as nausea, bloating, not having proper bowel movements, cramping, reflux? These are signs that our gut may be experiencing toxic burden. There are other environmental chemicals that can disrupt our gut health, but I’m going to focus on heavy metals: arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and lead. These different heavy metals are found in rice, seafood, water supply, protein powders, mushroom extracts, & cocoa/chocolate. How do they affect our gut? 1️⃣ Leading to increased permeability by altering our good gut bacteria, prompting growth of bad bacteria, and inducing inflammatory molecules (PMID 27709011) 2️⃣ Altering the development of the gut microbiota and affecting metabolic pathways, including some involved in detoxification (PMID 28234468) When this occurs, it can compromise our gut lining integrity therefore leading to absorption of larger molecules, toxins, and substances that wouldn’t otherwise have been able to pass through. It then impacts our body’s ability to detoxify leading to a recirculation of toxins (toxic burden) and contributing to making our gut symptoms worse! How to support? Choose brands for those above products that third party test for heavy metals. Check for underlying infections, bacteria overgrowth, etc that could have occurred from gut integrity being compromised. And work with a qualified practitioner who will look at all aspects that could be contributing to your symptoms: removing environmental chemicals, supporting with nutrients, and including detoxification support. Interested in working together? You can book a free 15 minute discovery with me, link in bio.

This is why I am so passionate about helping others achieve their optimal health 🙏 My gut issues had gotten to the point where I was unable to do a “hard” workout for fear of the nausea and pain. I used to get so stressed going to a potluck because if there was something that would trigger a flare. All these things added more stress to my life, therefore making my gut symptoms worse because I worried about everything. I’m grateful for my 10 year long journey because it has helped me to serve others in this space 🙏 My approach is very multi factorial in assessing what could be a the root of my clients symptoms. Nutrition, stress, environmental toxins, etc are just a few of the things I look into. Have you signed up for my recent newsletter? I talk about how heavy metals can impact our gut health. You can sign up, link in bio. Free 15 minute consults available to discuss what is impacting your health- link in bio!