Gastrointestinal Disorders Q and A with Dr. Ben Weitz: Rational Wellness Podcast 295
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Dr. Ben Weitz answers questions on Gastrointestinal Disorders.
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Podcast Highlights
0:59 The first question is: “I have stomach pain and I went to a gastroenterologist who did a colonoscopy and an endoscopy, and said there was nothing wrong. But then Prilosec was prescribed because that would help with the symptoms. Does that mean that my stomach pain is all in my head?” The answer is absolutely not. Endoscopy and colonoscopy are ways to look for structural problems like growths, obstructions, pockets, parasites, and inflammation (such as with Inflammatory Bowel Disease). But the most common gastrointestinal conditions are considered functional rather than structural and the most common condition is Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which occurs in up to 20% of the population. But the small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) that is believed to be the most common cause of IBS cannot be seen on a typical endoscopic or colonoscopic exam. Dr. Pimentel did develop a specialized procedure that allows accurate sampling of the bacteria throughout the small intestine, but this complicated procedure is not typically performed. Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) can create pain, gas, bloating, and diarrhea or constipation. When you eat fermentable fiber, the bacteria in the small intestine will produce hydrogen or methane or hydrogen sulfide gas, which results in these symptoms. SIBO is one form of dysbiosis of which there are other forms, including Large Intestinal bacterial overgrowth, small intestinal fungal overgrowth, candida overgrowth, pathogenic bacteria, parasites such as worms and other microorganisms. Or you can just have a low amount of healthy bacteria. Any form of dysbioisis can create various GI symptoms.
9:10 Next question, “Dr. Weitz, I have a lot of gas and bloating, especially if I eat broccoli or Brussels sprouts. What do you think is the cause and what can I do about it? And should I take Gas-X?” First we need to try to find the cause of the gas and bloating. They might just have sensitivity to broccoli and Brussels sprouts or it might be that these foods are high in fermentable fiber and they are suffering with Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO). The best way to diagnose SIBO is with a lactulose SIBO breath test. It is usually also beneficial to do a Functional Medicine oriented stool test like the GI Map and we might want to run an organic acids test to help us to identify Small Intestinal Fungal Overgrowth (SIFO).
13:18 The next question is “I have stomach pain, should I take probiotics, fermented foods, or digestive enzymes?” While taking probiotics may be helpful for a number of functional GI disorders and some prominent practitioners use probiotics as their first line therapy for such conditions, for patients with SIBO, taking conventional probiotics may not be appropriate, at least in the beginning of the treatment phase. There is a problem when citing research studies showing benefits of probiotics, since studies using different formulations of probiotics have been lumped together and this is not appropriate. This would be like lumping studies of various antibiotics together and then stating that antibiotics are effective for treating a particular condition. Each probiotic product should be tested separately from others. We need to be cautious about using probiotics that might increase bacterial counts in the small intestine when there is already too many bacteria growing there. This is why it makes more sense to use natural antimicrobials to reduce some of the bacteria, containing ingredients like oregano oil, berberine, allicin, and neem. It is also important to improve gut motility with natural prokinetics that helps to reduce bacterial counts in the small intestine. The one probiotic that we tend to use during the active treatment phase is a spore based probiotic, which does not open up until it gets into the large intestine. Once we reduce the bacteria count in the small intestine, then it makes sense to add in typical probiotics, such as those containing lactobacillus and bifido strains, as well as fermented foods.
Digestive enzymes can be very helpful at any phase of treatment for gastrointestinal problems, and digestive enzymes increase your ability to break down the food. And if you don’t properly break down the food, whether it be the carbohydrate component, the fat component, the protein component, you are more likely to react to that food. So for example, if there are certain types of fiber and you can’t break those fibers down, then those fibers might be more problematic. If there are proteins and you can’t break down those proteins, you’re more likely to have an immunological/allergic/sensitivity reaction to those foods. So I like using digestive enzymes and we will not always, but sometimes use them at various points during care, sometimes at the beginning, sometimes in the middle, sometimes in later phases. But adding digestive enzymes can be very helpful. The other way to increase digestive enzymes is to use herbal bitters, which cause your body to increase its own digestive enzymes.
22:06 Question number four for today, “What can I do about constipation? And if I have constipation, should I take fiber?” This depends upon what the cause of the constipation is. In functional medicine, we always want to get to the root cause. Now, if you’re constipated because you have intestinal obstruction, that’s a very serious matter. If you haven’t been able to go to the bathroom for days on end, this could be a serious situation and I highly recommend that you see a gastroenterologist, decide how severe it is and decide what is the intervention going to be. It’s possible you might even need emergency surgery, however, that’s rarely the case. And so what are some of the other causes of constipation? Well, eating an unhealthy, low fiber diet with lots of ultraprocessed foods can lead to constipation. And of course, that’s why increasing your vegetable and fruit and fiber intake can make sense. However, if you’re severely impacted right now and you consume a bunch of fiber, you might get more impacted. It is better to start with a stool softener like magnesium citrate. For it to be effective, it has got to be taken at the proper dosage, which can be up to 1,000 – 1,500 milligrams per day. Magnesium citrate brings more water into the stool, so for magnesium citrate to help with constipation, you’ve got to drink a lot of water.
So what are some of the other possible causes of constipation? Well, one of the possible causes of constipation is dysbiosis. And in particular, if you happen to have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, the methane form, meaning that the microorganisms in your small intestine are secreting methane gas. So when I was talking about the SIBO breath test, what is measured is hydrogen gas, methane gas, and hydrogen sulfide gas, and of those three, methane typically leads to constipation, though sometimes hydrogen or hydrogen sulfide can also cause constipation. Methane SIBO has also been called intestinal methanogen overgrowth (IMO) because it is called by primitive Archaea, known as methanogens, and this overgrowth can exist in the large intestine as well as in the small intestine.
And these Archaea, when they consume fermentable fiber, produce methane gas and methane gas slows the motility of the GI tract. So we have found that using the right antimicrobials that help to reduce the overgrowth of the Archaea using magnesium citrate. Once we’ve gotten the constipation cycle somewhat broken, then adding in some the right forms of fiber can be very beneficial. And the form of fiber that we have found that’s been shown in research to not aggravate the symptoms of SIBO is partially hydrolyzed guar gum, PHGG. That particular form of fiber has been shown to be very helpful for patients with SIBO. And typically when we add in fiber, that’s the when we’ll add in.
And then, a lot of times we’ll also use natural prokinetics to try to reset the motility of the digestive track. And in particular, what we’re trying to reset is something called the migrating motor complex. Now, what is the migrating motor complex? This is also known as the cleansing waves. So when you eat food, your digestive track has these peristaltic waves as different parts of the digestive track contract and push the food all the way down and through. However, that motility, those waves, those peristaltic activity occurs not only when you’re digesting food. But also when you have a need for three or four hours and your digestive tract is clear of food, then you’ll get these peristaltic contractions that we refer to as the migrating motor complex or the cleansing waves. And these help to keep too much bacteria from building up in the small intestine.
And so when we use natural prokinetics or promotility agents, we are attempting to reset the migrating motor complex and get those cleansing waves going. They’ll reduce the amount of bacteria or fungus that are growing in the small intestine. The other thing that’s important to do to make sure that happens is to make sure that you’re not constantly eating or grazing all day long. You need a period of time of at least three, four hours when you don’t eat anything. Black coffee’s fine, but snacking on anything that has calories, even if it’s healthy things like nuts, et cetera, is going to inhibit the migrating motor complex from kicking in. All right. So I actually have quite a number of other questions, but I think I’m going to take one more question and then we’re going to wrap it up for today.
Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also specializing in Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure and also weight loss and also athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations.
Podcast Transcript
Dr. Weitz: Hello, Rational Wellness Podcasters. Today we’re going to do a question and answer session about gut health. As you know, most of my sessions, most of my podcasts are interviews with other practitioners, but I plan to start doing some more solo cast where I talk about particular topics or answer some questions. So today we’re going to talk about gastrointestinal health.
1. So the first question is, “I have stomach pain and I went to a gastroenterologist who did a colonoscopy and an endoscopy, and said there was nothing wrong. But then Prilosec was prescribed because that would help with the symptoms. Does that mean that my stomach pain is all in my head?” The answer is absolutely not. Now, what your gastroenterologist was doing when he did those scopes was he was looking for what we might call structural problems. So when you put a scope either down from the mouth or up from the anus and look through parts of the digestive tract, you’re looking for, in general, specific structural issues like obstructions or pockets. You’re looking for inflammation, you’re looking for damage, you’re looking for polyps, you’re looking for growths. And the most common gastrointestinal problems are what we would call functional gastrointestinal problems. IBS, irritable bowel syndrome, is the most common of these functional gastrointestinal conditions. IBS is fairly frequent and occurs in at least 20% of the population. Now, is it possible to diagnose IBS when doing a scope? Well, it’s theoretically possible. You would have to use a special procedure that Dr. Mark Pimentel developed by which he was able to study the microbiome of the small intestine. Now, normally an endoscope which goes down from the mouth can only get into the first part of the small intestine. The small intestine is this long tube, fairly narrow tube that is very long and it’s difficult to get a scope down there. But he developed a special procedure where they used balloons to expand, and then ways to get a probe down into that area without collecting any bacteria from up above. And then they are able to sample the juices of the various sections of the small intestine. And by sampling these juices, the liquid that’s there, and then using DNA and or cultural analysis, they can see if there are either pathogenic bacteria or bacterial overgrowth or fungi or parasites. And Dr. Pimentel was able to map out the microbiome of the small intestine and it is possible to see an overgrowth of certain organisms. And we know there’s a certain number of organisms that are considered normal for the small intestine. And if you have more than that amount, that’s considered diagnostic of IBS. However, this particular analysis is rarely done. So this is not to take anything away from your gastroenterologist, it’s just not the standard, and it would be a much longer and more expensive procedure to try to sample the juices of various sections of the small intestine. So at this point in time using no special probe and other equipment and doing it in a way that Dr. Pimentel has done, is not the standard. So when they put a scope down there, if there’s no visible inflammation of the intestinal mucosa as there might be with irritable bowel disease [I intended to say Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)] like Crohn’s, essentially nothing will be seen when scoping it. And so IBS is known to be caused by, in the majority cases, irritable bowel syndrome is known to be caused by small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Once again, as I was just trying to explain, there are bacteria that line your digestive tract. And they occur throughout your digestive tract from your mouth all the way down to your anus. Now, the large intestine, the colon is where you have the largest concentration of bacteria. And we normally think of the colon as housing our microbiome, but there’s also a microbiome of the small intestine. Now, the small intestine is supposed to have a lower amount of bacterial count because if there are two large an amount of bacteria lining the small intestine, it will interfere with the absorption of nutrients. Remember that lining of your intestine, your intestinal mucosa is only one cell thick, and having a thick layer of bacteria lining that will make it difficult to absorb all those crucial nutrients that allow our bodies to work properly. So if there’s more than a certain amount as occurs in small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, this not only can create nutritional deficiencies, but it can create digestive symptoms. Now, why is that? And a lot of it has to do with the fact that the colon, which is a large and very expandable organ, normally has bacteria that are fermenting and producing gases, and this is actually healthy. The colonic fermentation produces short chain fatty acids like butyrate, which are healthy for the body and healthy for the gut.
It produces various nutritional supplements including vitamins, some of the B vitamins, vitamin K2, A number of nutrients are produced in the colon. However, the small intestine is not a super expandable tube. It’s much more narrow. And if you get too many bacteria that ferment fiber, they can produce gas and this can cause gas, bloating, and pain. Now, I would also like to explain that IBS is a subset of what’s called dysbiosis, meaning that there is an imbalance of microorganisms in the intestinal tract. Now, there are other forms of dysbiosis besides SIBO or IBS. This includes large intestinal bacterial overgrowth, small intestinal fungal overgrowth, candida overgrowth, pathogenic bacteria, parasites such as worms and other microorganisms. There are a number of, you can just have a low amount of healthy bacteria. There’s various imbalances that can occur in the microbiome that can all create digestive symptoms.
2. Okay, great. Next question, “Dr. Weitz, I have a lot of gas and bloating, especially if I eat broccoli or Brussels sprouts. What do you think is the cause and what can I do about it? And should I take Gas-X?” Well, first of all, Gas-X is an enzyme that helps you to break down the fiber in beans, and taking a supplement without knowing what the cause of the problem is, is not the best idea. If it helps you symptomatically, fine, it’s not going to harm you. But the most important thing is to try to get a better sense of what either the cause or causes or triggers of your problem are. Now, why would you get a lot of gas and bloating from eating broccoli? Now, you could have a sensitivity to broccoli. Your body just may not tolerate broccoli and/or Brussels sprouts, and that can happen with any food. On the other hand, broccoli and Brussels sprouts are classic examples of foods that contain fermentable fiber. So these would be considered to be high FODMAP foods, and high FODMAP foods are foods that have a lot of fermentable fiber. And when patients are suffering with small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, we often abbreviated as SIBO, which as I just mentioned is the primary cause of irritable bowel syndrome. Eating more high FODMAP foods, foods that have fermentable fiber is liable to make the symptoms worse. So I would recommend that we start to get to the root cause of what’s causing the gas and bloating. And this will depend a course on your history, and we need to know a lot more about exactly what’s going on, what other symptoms you have, and how much broccoli and Brussels sprouts are you eating, and how long has this been occurring on and on. But then we would need to do some specific testing to get a better sense of the diagnosis. The best way to diagnose small intestinal bacterial overgrowth is to do a lactulose breath test. The best way to investigate dysbiosis in general is to do a high quality stool analysis. And functional medicine stool analyses are quite a bit different than the typical stool analysis you might get. If you ask your doctor and he sends you over to Quest, and they basically look for parasites and pathogenic bacteria. That type of stool test is not going to look at the microbiome, it’s not going to look at digestive factors, it’s not going to look for other markers of the overall health of your digestive tract. So SIBO breath test and/or functional medicine oriented stool test, and then sometimes we’ll do an organic acids test if we’re suspecting fungal overgrowth. Because the organic acids test may be the best markers to help us identify fungal overgrowth, which cannot be identified on a breath test and is difficult to identify on a stool test.
3. Okay. The next question is, “I have stomach pain, should I take probiotics, fermented foods, or digestive enzymes?” Well, I certainly know practitioners who are well-respected, who recommend probiotics as a first line treatment for a number of patients with functional gut disorders, and I’m sure some of their patients get great results. And there are quite a number of studies on probiotics. And I have used probiotics in patients with various types of gut disorders and some of the times they’ve worked, some of the times they haven’t worked. But I’d like to say a word about the studies on probiotics, and this is a bit of a problem is probiotics are basically the healthy bacteria put into typically capsules or a powder, and then consumed. And the idea is this will help to build up the healthy bacteria inside your body, what we refer to as the microbiome. And there are individual probiotics like that probiotic might just contain lactobacillus particular strain or it could be a blend of various strains. Typically, lactobacillus strains, bifido strains, sometimes healthy yeast or saccharomyces boulardii will be included. Sometimes the spore-based bacillus strains. There are many, many particular strains of probiotics on the market, and studies have actually shown that there are specific benefits to different strains. And yet when we look at the probiotic research, and then we do a meta-analysis of looking at probiotics. We’re actually merging together a huge number of different products, and nobody would do that while testing antibiotics or any other substances. So if I told you antibiotics are effective because this study use rifaximin, and that study used another antibiotic and this study used a combination of these two different antibiotics, and you’d say, “What are you talking about? These are all different things.”
Show me one or multiple studies or a meta-analysis just using one antibiotic like rifaximin at a specific dosage for a particular period of time in a specific patient, and then we’ll consider using that. That would be considered validity. But just lumping all probiotics into a category and seeing that probiotics are effective for a particular condition is not considered the highest level of science. Then we have the whole concept of whether or not it makes sense to consume a probiotic if the person is suffering with IBS or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. So understand that small intestinal bacterial overgrowth means that we have an excess of bacteria growing in the small intestine. Therefore, does it make sense to consume a capsule that contains more bacteria that might go into the small intestine and add to the bacteria that are already there?
Obviously, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. I have worked with patients with IBS who’ve taken probiotics and who have felt worse taking them. We have had a few patients who said they felt better, other patients couldn’t tell the difference. But theoretically, it doesn’t seem to make sense to add more bacteria if there’s already too many bacteria there. It makes more sense to attempt to reduce the amount of bacteria by either using prescription antibiotics. As a chiropractor, we can’t prescribe antibiotics, so those would have to be prescribed by your primary care doctor, your gastroenterologist. So either using prescription antibiotics like rifaximin, which is an antibiotic that’s often used for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or using natural antimicrobials. And these are products that might contain one or several ingredients that contain things like oregano oil, berberine, Allison, neem, et cetera. And then perhaps later on in the treatment program, after we’ve reduced the bacteria and gotten the gut to heal, improve the gut motility, restoring that gut motility that keeps the bacterial count in the small intestine from being too high, then considering using some probiotics makes a lot of sense.
Now during the active phase of care, when we’re trying to reduce the bacterial overgrowth, I have found that a particular type of probiotic. A spore based probiotic that can get all the way down through the small intestine and not open up until it gets into the large intestine. We have found that type of probiotic can be a useful adjunct in the active care of treating IBS and SIBO. However, the typical bifido and lactobacillus combination strains of probiotics I have found not to work as well. What about fermented foods? Well, if what I said about probiotics is correct that we don’t want to add more bacteria while we’re trying to reduce the bacterial count, then we also don’t want to consume fermented foods because these are liable to add to the bacterial overgrowth and make the symptoms worse. Once again, once we’re past that initial phase where that phase takes a month or six months to reduce the bacterial count, adding in fermented foods gradually to tolerance levels can be an excellent way to improve the health of the gastrointestinal tract.
What about digestive enzymes? Well, digestive enzymes I find can be very helpful at any phase of treatment for gastrointestinal problems, and digestive enzymes increase your ability to break down the food. And if you don’t properly break down the food, whether it be the carbohydrate component, the fat component, the protein component, you are more likely to react to that food. So for example, if there are certain types of fiber and you can’t break those fibers down, then those fibers might be more problematic. If there are proteins and you can’t break down those proteins, you’re more likely to have an immunological allergic sensitivity reaction to those foods. So I like using digestive enzymes and we will not always, but sometimes use them at various points during care, sometimes at the beginning, sometimes in the middle, sometimes in later phases. But adding digestive enzymes can be very helpful. The other way to increase digestive enzymes is to use herbal bitters, which cause your body to release its own digestive enzymes.
4. Question number four for today, “What can I do about constipation? And if I have constipation, should I take fiber?” Well, take a guess what my first response is going to be. It depends upon the cause. It depends upon the cause of the constipation. In functional medicine, we always want to get to the root cause. We don’t want to just jump out and treat symptoms. Now, if you’re constipated because you have intestinal obstruction, that’s a very serious matter. If you haven’t been able to go to the bathroom for days on end, this could be a serious situation and I highly recommend that you see a gastroenterologist, decide how severe it is and decide what is the intervention going to be. It’s possible you might even need emergency surgery, however, that’s rarely the case. And so what are some of the other causes of constipation?
Well, poor diet can lead to constipation, not eating a lot of foods with enough fiber. And of course, that’s why increasing your fiber intake can make sense. However, if you’re severely impacted right now and you consume a bunch of fiber, you might find things up more and have even more difficulty. So I have found that typically the first answer is to add a stool softener like magnesium citrate. There are other natural stool softeners. There are over-the-counter and prescription stool softeners, but I really like magnesium citrate. However, it is got to be taken at the right dosage, and this could be up to 1,000 – 1,500 milligrams per day. A lot of times I’ll talk to a patient and they said, “Well, I took 100 milligrams, isn’t that enough?” Or, “I took 200. Is it bad to take more?” And that can be a really minimal dose.
Now, magnesium citrate brings more water into the stool. So for a magnesium citrate to help with constipation, you’ve got to drink a lot of water. So when you take the magnesium citrate, I recommend one to two glasses of water at that time. And unless it’s late at night to follow it up with a couple of additional glasses of water within the next hour or so. If it’s late at night, you’re going to bed, I don’t want you staying up all night peeing. So what are some of the other possible causes of constipation? Well, one of the possible causes of constipation is dysbiosis. And in particular, if you happen to have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, the methane form, meaning that the microorganisms in your small intestine are secreting methane gas. So when I was talking about the SIBO breath test, what is measured is hydrogen gas, methane gas, and hydrogen sulfide gas, and of those three methane, typically leads to constipation. Now, this is not always the case. We have patients with hydrogen who get constipation. I’ve even seen patients with hydrogen sulfide who have constipation.
But methane is typically associated with constipation. We know that just secreting methane into the intestinal tract will tend to lead to constipation. Now, methane SIBO is now been called intestinal methanogen overgrowth. And so that’s because it can occur in the large intestine and not just in the small intestine. What are methanogens? Well, it turns out that the microorganisms that cause methane SIBO are actually not bacteria, but microorganisms known as primitive Archaea. And these Archaea, when they consume fermentable fiber, produce methane gas and methane gas slows the motility of the GI tract. So we have found that using the right antimicrobials that help to reduce the overgrowth of the Archaea using magnesium citrate. Once we’ve gotten the constipation cycle somewhat broken, then adding in some the right forms of fiber can be very beneficial. And the form of fiber that we have found that’s been shown in research to not aggravate the symptoms of SIBO is partially hydrolyzed guar gum, PHGG. That particular form of fiber has been shown to be very helpful for patients with SIBO. And typically when we add in fiber, that’s the when we’ll add in.
And then, a lot of times we’ll also use natural prokinetics to try to reset the motility of the digestive track. And in particular, what we’re trying to reset is something called the migrating motor complex. Now, what is the migrating motor complex? This is also known as the cleansing waves. So when you eat food, your digestive track has these peristaltic waves as different parts of the digestive track contract and push the food all the way down and through. However, that motility, those waves, those peristaltic activity occurs not only when you’re digesting food. But also when you have a need for three or four hours and your digestive tract is clear of food, then you’ll get these peristaltic contractions that we refer to as the migrating motor complex or the cleansing waves. And these help to keep too much bacteria from building up in the small intestine.
And so when we use natural prokinetics or promotility agents, we are attempting to reset the migrating motor complex and get those cleansing waves going. They’ll reduce the amount of bacteria or fungus that are growing in the small intestine. The other thing that’s important to do to make sure that happens is to make sure that you’re not constantly eating or grazing all day long. You need a period of time of at least three, four hours when you don’t eat anything. Black coffee’s fine, but snacking on anything that has calories, even if it’s healthy things like nuts, et cetera, is going to inhibit the migrating motor complex from kicking in. All right. So I actually have quite a number of other questions, but I think I’m going to take one more question and then we’re going to wrap it up for today.
So, “Dr. Weitz, if I have stomach pain, should I get tested for food sensitivities? Or should I just avoid gluten and dairy?” All right. So food sensitivity testing. I have done a range of food sensitivity tests, some are way more extensive than others, and the more extensive ones are quite a bit more expensive and cost a thousand bucks to get a really high quality panel of all the detailed food sensitivity tests. We can do fruit sensitivity tests for a couple hundred bucks. We can just test the limited number of foods for IGG. Food sensitivity, by the way, is different than food allergies, which are IgE reactions. I’ve run some of these tests and found they were very helpful. They identified a few foods we didn’t really know where on the radar. Oh wow, strawberries, ah, that explained something. Almonds, ah okay, maybe that’s why I was getting those symptoms. And we’ll experiment with taking those foods out for two, three months, and then test them back. If the patients still get symptoms, we’ll keep them out for a longer period of time, and then test them back again at some point in the future.
If they continue to have symptoms, we’ll just recommend avoiding those foods forever. But we’ve had other patients where we did food sensitivity testing and all the foods that they tend to eat come back as positive and sometimes it’s dozens and dozens of foods, and limiting all those foods really doesn’t make sense for the overall health of the patient. So I don’t run food sensitivity tests on all of the patients. How about just avoiding gluten and dairy? Actually, not a bad idea as long as you don’t obsess about it too much. But there are a number of reasons to think that the gluten molecule is sufficiently causes enough food sensitivities and other sorts of reactions in the body. We know that the type of wheat is being grown so that it has a much larger gluten molecule that’s harder to break down. This allows the pastry products, the breads, et cetera, to stick together.
Gluten’s a sticky protein, and so we have more gluten in our wheat. We have a much longer chain of gluten that’s difficult to digest, and 90% of most wheat products in the United States are sprayed with glyphosate, which is a very dangerous herbicide. And so unless you’re consuming organic and even then there’s a risk. Consuming wheat of any kind is going to increase your potential for consuming glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in Roundup, which is very powerful herbicide and is not known to be good for your health. So we could do a food sensitivity task, we could do an elimination diet and just take out some of the most common foods, keep them out for a period of one to three months, and then test them back one at a time. So it’s another way to do it. So it’s kind of an open question, but yes, food sensitivities can be a problem. Sometimes testing is helpful and sometimes it’s not. So I know that’s not a concrete specific answer, but that’s the answer that makes the most sense. Okay.
Thank you so much for sending in your questions. You can send me additional questions to my website, weitzchiro@yahoo.com. Please note that I cannot answer individual questions and if I think the question is worthy, I will include it in a future Q&A podcast. Anyway, thanks so much for joining me today. For everybody who likes listening to this Rational Wellness Podcast, please, please, please go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Give us a five star ratings or review and rank us, so more people can find out about the podcast. And for those who need help with digestive disorders, call my office at 310-395-3111, and we’ll get you set up with a consultation to get you on the road to better health. Thank you and we’ll see you next week.