Ep. 31: Hydrogen Sulfide SIBO: Carnivore Diet, Keto, or Low FODMAP?

What is your approach to hydrogen sulfide SIBO?

 

In this episode of the Love Your Gut Podcast, I talk about the three types of SIBO, testing for Hydrogen Sulfide SIBO, symptoms to look out for, how Hydrogen Sulfide SIBO works, the changes you could make to improve your symptoms, various diets and their effects on SIBO, and the importance of increasing variety in our diets.

 

 

Topics Covered in This Episode:

 

• Why hydrogen sulfide is toxic to your mitochondria [0:02]
• What is SIBO? What is hydrogen sulfide SIBO (HSI)? [1:50]
• Testing for diagnosing hydrogen sulfide SIBO? [10:20]

• Common symptoms of IBS SIBO? [12:40]
• What can you do to help hydrogen sulfide symptoms? [18:38]
• What are polyphenols and how do they help?[23:42]
• Where is the sulfur coming from in the gut? [25:27]
• What we use with our clients that we find helpful [34:55]

 

If this episode has been helpful, hit me up on Instagram, and tell me about your experience!

 

Recommendations:

• Trio Smart Test.
• Bimuno.
• XOS+ GOS Prebiotic.
• SunFiber, Thorne FiberMend.
• The Healthy Happy Gut Cookbook.
• Increase prebiotic fibre, polyphenols, and resistant starch to your diet.
• Decrease saturated fats and animal proteins.
• Increase variety in fibre and color.

  

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If you’re new here, I encourage you to follow the podcast today, so that you don’t miss any future episodes!

Quotes:

• “Your SIBO is a symptom. It’s not a root cause.”
• “Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth occurs when there’s an abnormal increase in the overall bacterial population in the small intestine.”
• “You don’t need to cut all of the sulfur foods out of your diet.”
• “Your body needs variety.”
• The more prebiotic fiber and polyphenols resistant starch that you can include in your diet, the better 

 

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Are you following my podcast? If you’re not, I want to encourage you to do that today so you don’t miss any future episodes! I would also appreciate it if you would leave me a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! I read each of them, and they help me make sure I am providing the content that you love to hear

 

 

TRANSCRIPTION:

SPEAKERS

Dr. Heather Finley

Dr. Heather Finley  00:02

Hydrogen sulfide is extremely toxic to your mitochondria. And if you go back to like eighth grade biology, you probably remember learning about mitochondria and mitochondria and ATP production. We need ATP production for energy production. And so that’s why brain fog is such a common symptom with hydrogen sulfide SIBO.

Dr. Heather Finley  00:30

Hey, welcome to the love your gut podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Heather Finley, I know what you’re thinking, how am I supposed to love my gut when all it does is hold me back. I thought the same thing before I found my own relief from my own gut health issues. I dedicated my life to getting to the bottom of my own gut issues, so I can help women just like you transform theirs. Now I’m here to guide you through your own gut health journey. We do this through identifying your root causes and making sustainable and transformational changes. As a result, you can unleash your true potential. My goal is to empower you with the information and tools you need to love your guts. So it loves you back right here on this podcast.

Dr. Heather Finley  01:13

Hello, hello. Welcome to the first episode of 2023. Seems crazy. We’re already here. And thank you so much for your patience. I know it’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve had a new episode. But for a good reason. Mainly being my book has launched, which was a huge undertaking. If you miss the news, my book is available for purchase The Healthy, Happy Gut Cookbook, you can buy it on Amazon, you can buy it at Barnes and Noble, you can buy it really anywhere that books are sold. And I’m really, really excited to have it out in the world. Just a special thank you to everyone who has supported the book, it’s been overwhelming. You all have supported the book so much, by purchasing it by sharing it by giving Amazon reviews, which is huge for really helping fulfill the mission of the book, which is to help more people understand their digestive symptoms and find relief. The book is not just a cookbook, it is packed full of information.

Dr. Heather Finley  02:21

I ran into a friend the other day, and it was so kind. He was like Heather, I My wife bought this. And I really thought that this was going to be just a cookbook and he’s like this is like a literal Life Manual, I have learned so much. And that was the biggest compliment. And I was so happy that he told me that because that’s what I really wanted it to be it was an actual manual for how to find relief from your symptoms and how to understand them. I think the number one reason that people struggle with digestive symptoms is because they don’t understand them. So all that to say thank you all so much for supporting the book and for continuing to support the book. It really means the world.

Dr. Heather Finley  03:05

And I’m excited about today’s episode, we are going to talk all about hydrogen sulfide SIBO. This is going to be applicable whether you are a practitioner or whether you just listen to this podcast to learn about digestive health from either personal experience or those around you. So I really, I will make it easily understandable for anybody who is listening. But I wanted to do this episode, because hydrogen sulfide SIBO is not something that’s talked about very often. And we’re seeing it more and more in the gut Together program with the women that we work with. And I did a practitioner training in my gut Practitioner program a couple of weeks ago. And I got several messages from people after like, how have I never heard of this? Oh my gosh, I think I’ve missed so many clients that have this and I didn’t even know. So I really, really hope that this is helpful. And if you like this episode or these more sciency episodes, let me know because I’m a nerd and I would love to keep doing really nerdy sciency episodes. So let’s just kick it off by first just explaining what SIBO is. SIBO is bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine. And small intestinal bacterial overgrowth occurs when there’s an abnormal increase in the overall bacterial population in the small intestine. The small intestine should be largely sterile there’s it’s not going to be completely sterile. There are actual bacteria that are in the small intestine. And the more that we research SIBO the more we even know about specific bacteria that are only in the small intestine versus the large intestine. So the large intestine, also known as your colon, is where most of your bacteria is. You have trillions and trillions of bacteria in and on your body and the biggest concentration of them are in your colon. So we want lots To have good bacteria, or probiotics or microbes, whatever you want to call them in your large intestine, and when you get SIBO bacteria ends up in the small intestine, where it’s not supposed to be. And these are unwanted types of organisms. So there are three types of SIBO. Most people only know of the two types that are on standard SIBO testing, which are intestinal myth, antigen overgrowth, or methane dominant SIBO, and then hydrogen SIBO, or hydrogen dominant SIBO. Those are the two that if you go to the GI doctor, and they order a SIBO test, most likely you will get those two tested. There’s a new or newer, known type of SIBO, called hydrogen sulfide SIBO. So that’s really what we’re going to focus on today, you may be like, scrambling through your medical documents looking for what type of test you had for your SIBO. The only test that you can have for hydrogen sulfide is something called the trios test. And the trio test is only available in the US. So if you live outside of the US, hopefully the trio test will be available to you. Someday, I will link that site in the show notes in case you want to check it out. Or think that potentially after listening to this episode, maybe you think you want to get this tested. So the trio test is the only one that will test for hydrogen sulfide. And we, if we do cielo testing, this is the test that we’ll do. Because like I said earlier, this is something that we’re seeing tons and tons more with our clients. So the way that testing works for SIBO. Or the way, the mechanism behind like how they’re measuring these gases, is the hydrogen sulfide gas diffuses across membranes in your body, it makes its way to blood vessels, which then makes its way to your lungs, and you breathe it out. So the breath test is measuring the amount of hydrogen sulfide gas that you are off putting and determining if you have this hydrogen sulfide overgrowth. Like I said, trio smart, we call it the trio test is the only breath test that will actually test for this. There’s lots of conflicting opinions on like how to actually interpret a positive test. But you have to evaluate based on a baseline test or a baseline number. Because the gas actually could be coming from the colon from the small bowel, it could be coming from the mouth actually could be coming from the stomach from the bladder. There’s tons of it’s not just the small intestine that can have this gas, it can be everywhere, or not everywhere, many, many places. And there’s there’s some practitioners that have different opinions on this. And that’s not really the purpose of this episode. So I’m not really going to get into it too much. But there is a rule of thought or a school of thought that says that if you have a flatlined SIBO test, the standard test, not the trio test. It could be hydrogen sulfide, because essentially hydrogen gas is being produced is being gobbled up and it’s producing hydrogen sulfide. Now, if you have a flatline to test, you could just have a negative SIBO test. So don’t hear this as like a diagnosis is saying like, Oh, you had a flatlined SIBO test you were negative. And so you actually could have hydrogen sulfide or you actually do, because you could just not have SIBO. But the gold standard for diagnosing SIBO is the double peak. So you’re gonna have a pocket of bacteria in the small intestine, and a pocket of bacteria and a second peak, you know, when the substrate hits the colon.

Dr. Heather Finley  09:11

It’s more common with lactulose than a glucose substrate. But like I said, we’re not going to get into like some of the nuances today. What I really want to talk about is SIBO and hydrogen sulfide specifically, and some of the causes and what you can do about it. Just a quick note to as I’m thinking about this is there was a really interesting study on oral hygiene by the guy who is the founder of probiotic advisor, and I’m blanking on his name, but he did a study looking at individuals that actually did a mouthrinse like an Anta antimicrobial mouthrinse before they did a SIBO test and found that when they did this mouthrinse it actually It gave them a negative test versus when they did it. So if you want to go look that study up, you can, but there’s a significant connection as well with the oral microbiome, which could be an episode definitely for another time. I know a question that I get a lot in my DMs is about, can you diagnose SIBO? Through a stool test? And the answer is no, you cannot diagnose SIBO based on stool testing. However, we do know now that there are specific bacteria that can contribute to SIBO. And specifically hydrogen sulfide SIBO. So the two bacteria that contribute to hydrogen sulfide SIBO are below phyla, and the sulfa, Vibrio, these are on some stool tests, not all stool tests, like for example, I know a lot of practitioners use the GI map. desulfovibrio is now actually on the GI map. Whereas below phyla is not. Biome FX has these markers. That’s the microbiome labs stool test, there’s a stool test called Andre that has it. Gi effects has some of these markers. So depending on what stool tests you do, you can’t diagnose hydrogen sulfide SIBO from it, but there these two bacteria being present does potentially indicate that maybe that could be consistent with the symptoms that you’re having. There are other Proteobacteria that can potentially contribute. But it doesn’t mean again that just because you have these on a stool test, you have hydrogen sulfide SIBO. For example, E coli, certain strains of E. coli, can contribute to hydrogen sulfide, Pseudomonas Klebsiella, Citrobacter, and Proteus are also bacteria that can contribute to hydrogen sulfide. So like I mentioned earlier, hydrogen sulfide gas can be produced in the mouth, the small bowel, the colon. But the two most common areas for this bacteria are the small bowel and the colon. So in the small bowel, that’s where we’re dying. That’s where we’re taking the the trio smart test, and we are diagnosing it with the breath test. And that’s the standard way that you’re going to test for these. But let’s get into some of the symptoms and signs of hydrogen sulfide. So some of the main signs are bloating, distension, bowel changes. A lot of the research shows constipation, but there are now some research studies that show diarrhea and I know Dr. Pimentel talks about this a bit as well. But those are really all standard symptoms. I mean, how many people that have IBS, or have any type of gut issue have bloating, distension, or bowel changes? So if you’re listening to this, and you’re thinking yes, yes, yes, that doesn’t mean you have hydrogen sulfide. Some of the other more significant or unique symptoms that you could have are hypersensitivity to light or sound, bladder irritation, you see this quite a bit with interstitial cystitis. I know, we’ve seen it quite a bit in some of the clients that we’ve worked with. Brain fog is a big one. And I’ll talk about why later. And then nerve pain. Another symptom that we often see is egg smelling gas. So our clients who are like, it’s really embarrassing, you know, I’m at work and I have really bad gas, and I like have to cover it up. And it just becomes really life altering. That can be a symptom as well. So everyone’s going to present with different symptoms, I think it depends on the bacteria that are causing this. Obviously, the levels of bacteria, as well as where it is, you know, if it’s in the call the colon, it’s going to maybe be different than the small intestine. But visceral hypersensitivity specifically, is a pretty common symptom of IBS, SIBO, but more common with those that have hydrogen sulfide SIBO. And essentially, when someone has visceral hypersensitivity, what’s happening is related to mast cells and histamine. So there’s too many mast cells, and these mast cells are causing too much histamine in the gut, which is causing some of these symptoms. So if you have histamine issues, if you have mast cell or suspected mast cell issues, potentially this could be a driving underlying cause. And I guess that’s something also to keep in mind as well is your SIBO is not a it’s a symptom. It’s not a root cause. So we really want to look at the underlying cause. Reasons why. So I want to talk a bit about the mechanism behind hydrogen sulfide SIBO. And why you might just feel really poorly, and hopefully maybe shed some light on why that is. So hydrogen sulfide itself, as a gas is very irritating, irritating to the colonic sites, which are the cells of the colon. And these cells absorb water, they absorb minerals, they absorb so many things. And they regulate our microbiome. And when these cells are irritated, it is very hard for them to do their job. And this has an impact on the mucus layer of the gut, the mucus layer is going nuts. And the microbiome is going nuts. And there’s just tons of irritation and tons of inflammation. It can also degrade the lining of the gut, which can lead to tons of symptoms. There’s also some really interesting research about colitis, and how colitis, and in the connection between colitis and hydrogen sulfide SIBO. So the other thing that’s going on here is hydrogen sulfide is extremely toxic to your mitochondria. And if you go back to like eighth grade biology, you probably remember learning about mitochondria, and mitochondria and ATP production, we need ATP production for energy production. And so that’s why brain fog is such a common symptom with hydrogen sulfide SIBO, because it’s directly impacting the mitochondria, which is directly impacting energy production, which is so interesting, right? That this mechanism is like not only just affecting the gut, which obviously we know that so many things are impacted outside of the gut, but that like this is down to the like cellular level, how this is affecting your brain, and your ability to focus or stay present. So that’s a big one that we see. But essentially, you need strong, healthy mitochondria for so many things. But specifically for muscle function, contraction, energy neuron firing. And so this is where like some of the muscle pain, the nerve pain, the brain fog, all that is coming in, because of the direct impact that the hydrogen sulfide is having on the mitochondria of the body. The other mechanism I alluded to earlier about bladder spasms and interstitial cystitis. Could be because of this as well, because of the direct effect on muscle contraction. The bladder is a muscle and the irritation that can happen there. There’s other things obviously, that could be present here like oxalate issues, or histamine issues, or candida or whatever it might be. But hydrogen sulfide, the connection between hydrogen sulfide and interstitial cystitis is very, very interesting. So if you heard nothing from this last section, what I want you to hear is that hydrogen sulfide is very toxic to the mitochondria. And that’s why you’re so tired. And that’s why you can’t focus. And so the good news is, when you can improve the hydrogen sulfide, these symptoms can go away, which hopefully gives you a ton of hope. And just a bit of perspective here.

Dr. Heather Finley  18:56

So I mentioned earlier, the bacteria that are common with hydrogen sulfide. So those are definitely things that that can contribute to this as well. But I want to talk about some things that can actually help hydrogen sulfide SIBO, or hydrogen sulfide gas. What we know is the more the diet is restricted, the harder that is to come out of and the higher risk we are for nutrient deficiencies. The body already has trouble when SIBO is present with nutrient deficiencies, let alone when the diet is so restricted to sulfa Vibrio and below phyla, specifically, these bacteria are bio tolerant and they can digest bile acids. Bile is a great source of sulfur if you didn’t know that, which is super, super interesting. And these bacteria also really like saturated fat and higher fat diets. I can’t tell you how many clients we’ve seen that have gone keto or carnivore or even paleo and their symptoms are so much worse. And the reason being here is that these diets are typically much higher in saturated fat, meat and sulfur containing foods. I’ll talk in a little bit about why you don’t have to cut out all the sulfur in your diet. But just know that these if you have tried these diets, or your client has tried these diets, and they feel worse, and they have some of the symptoms I mentioned earlier, this is worth ruling out. And you definitely don’t treat this SIBO the same that you do others. So these can also be the long haul SIBO errors that like fail all SIBO treatments could be because they’re using the wrong things, you’re definitely going to use different products and different treatments. If it’s hydrogen sulfide that’s present. There’s some studies that actually show that low FODMAP as well will increase sulphide producers, which is why maybe you feel worse on low FODMAP. Or your symptoms just got worse when you stayed on low FODMAP too long. And there’s also studies that show that brassica vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, etc. Actually lower sulphide producers. So all the things that you’re told to cut out, actually are the things that are really going to help you.

Dr. Heather Finley  21:19

Hey, there, I know you are absolutely loving this episode. But I am so excited because my book, The healthy happy gut cookbook is now available for pre order. This book is designed to help you identify the causes of your symptoms, give you really actionable steps to address them, and help you love food again and get back in the kitchen. So not only is it packed with tons of info, it’s also packed with over 50 delicious recipes that I’m so excited for you to try. When you preorder this book, you not only get the book on your doorstep on December 20, just in time for Christmas. But you also get access to some bonus trainings and a live q&a call with me in December. So we will be releasing more info about that soon. But I would absolutely love it if you would pre order the book and share it with a friend who might need it as well. The link to preorder the book is in the show notes and also on my website.

Dr. Heather Finley  22:16

And the interesting thing here is that oftentimes people think of SIBO and they think oh my gosh, I can’t tolerate any fiber. I can’t eat any FODMAPs. I can’t eat anything that’s going to ferment or cause issues. But if you look at the research, specifically on hydrogen sulfide, it is showing that FODMAPs actually help inhibit the growth have specifically disulphide Vibrio and below phyla and Proteobacteria, specifically the FODMAP, gos galacto, oligosaccharide. So, so interesting, right. So if you’ve been on a low FODMAP diet forever, and you find that your symptoms have just worsened and worsen and worsened. And maybe now you have nerve pain and bladder pain, and egg smelling gas and brain fog, potentially, I know we’ve seen this with many clients, your SIBO could have transformed into hydrogen sulfide SIBO, which is why you don’t feel any better on the low FODMAP diet. And maybe the symptoms are getting worse. There’s also some studies on gos galacto oligosaccharide, pH GG, partially hydrolyzed guar gum, and sauce, also a FODMAP, showing that it inhibits the growth of desulfovibrio. And that pH GG feeds your good bacteria. So the saying of like, don’t don’t eat any fiber or don’t eat any FODMAPs because it’s going to, you know, feed the bad bacteria. And it’s going to make things worse, there’s actually no research to support that. There’s never been one study to date to show that like you can starve these bacteria or that, you know, if you just avoid the foods that feed all fiber that you’ll be better. You might feel better symptom wise, but you’re not actually addressing the underlying problem problem. So the really cool shift here is that there are things that you can do from a diet perspective to actually help improve your symptoms. And I’m going to talk you through some of that. But before we do that, I want to talk also about poly phenols. So poly phenols are plant compounds that act similar to prebiotic fiber and help to promote the growth of beneficial bacteria. poly phenols are a great strategy for SIBO in general, but specifically hydrogen sulfide SIBO because they’re anti inflammatory, they’re helpful for the mitochondria. And they’re going to promote the growth of the good bacteria that we want. So including more poly phenols in your diet, more zosky containing foods or just more fiber in general, is going to be very, very helpful for this condition. Now I want to talk a bit about sulfur. So there’s a school of thought, or a lot of people that will say, Oh, if you have hydrogen sulfide, you need to eat a low sulfur diet, and that is going to be what provides you relief. So low FODMAP was number one, low sulfur is now the second thing we’re talking about. What’s happening with hydrogen sulfide is the bacteria are gobbling up the hydrogen producing sulfur, which is what’s producing for a lot of people that sulfur smell and gas. But really, the main question that we’re looking at is like, where’s the sulfur coming from? So now we want to talk a bit about low sulfur. This is another diet or elimination diet that you will hear talked about with hydrogen sulfide SIBO, a lot of people will say, Oh, if you have hydrogen sulfide, SIBO, you should just cut out all the sulfur in your diet, and it will make the symptoms better, and your hydrogen sulfide SIBO will get better. And here’s the thing that we need to know about hydrogen sulfide and SIBO. We really have only been researching this for five ish years. And we actually don’t really have a ton of data on the sulfur, the actual amounts of sulfur in foods. If you Google low sulfur diet, you will find every variation that is so conflicting. So it is honestly no wonder that everyone is so just worried about what to eat and so confused, because everything on the internet contradicts each other. So we have definitely not seen tons of improvement for individuals that just like cut out all the sulfur, probably because we’re they’re getting sulfur from other things that they’re unaware of. Like before they started working with us, but also because there’s an underlying mechanism that we have to address. So for what it’s worth, you don’t need to cut all the sulfur foods out of your diet, you are going to find so many variations of that on the internet. And there’s a better way. So.

Dr. Heather Finley  27:48

And just like you know, there’s been no study to show that the low FODMAP diet can starve SIBO bacteria in your gut have tons of metabolic flexibility. So you can really do any diet you want. But we’re not going to kill off bacteria. You have to use herbals or antibiotics or other things to aid your body in doing this diet is a piece. But I want you to think about it from the perspective of what can you add to support your gut. Because if you’ve gotten to the point where you have hydrogen sulfide SIBO, just cutting out more and more foods is not going to be the solution. Because there’s so much good quality research showing how much fiber in general just really helps this. So the more variety you can add in, the better even if you go really slow, you’re going to be more successful. We also get sulfur from other things. So we have sulfur, obviously from food that we consume, like meat, eggs, dairy, those are food based sources of sulfur. There’s also sulfur present in the process of bile flow. As you all know, or you may not know, but I’m a huge fan of bile makes me sound like such a nerd. But Bile is truly the MVP of digestion. And when you release bile with meals, it releases taurine, there is sulfur involved in this process. There’s also sulfur involved with the mucous layer of the gut. And this is the barrier of protection between your gut lining and the rest of the situation. So if you don’t have sulfur to support that, then that could be a problem as well. But like I said, your mucous layer is the defense between your microbes and you and it’s made out of sulfur, carbs, protein, etc. So if your immune system is agitated in your gut lining, it’s going to make compounds high in sulfur. Chronic inflammation is going to increase sulfur. So we need sulfur are. But cutting cutting it out is not key here. That’s not going to fix the situation. There is some research looking at, like ulcerative colitis and sulfur producing organisms in their gut. And so that could be a whole nother topic for another day. If you have UC, you can go look that up. But essentially, what you need to know from a diet perspective here is that the more prebiotic fiber, poly phenols, resistant starch that you can include in your diet, the better, there are certain foods that we do want to decrease when we’re looking at hydrogen sulfide, the main one is saturated fat. So high levels of saturated fat are not going to be good for hydrogen sulfide, SIBO. And then animal protein in large amounts, can you still eat animal protein? Yes, but large amounts at one time, not going to be great. But I would rather focus on the foods to increase. So as I mentioned already FODMAPs that are tolerated, as many as you can tolerate. And then things like kale, broccoli, Brussel, sprouts, all those cruciferous vegetables are really good here. So cauliflower, cabbage, if you can add those in, even if they need to be really well cooked, you’re going to be doing your gut a favor. Fiber, like I mentioned, specifically the gos fiber. So like the immuno is a really great gos fiber supplement that you can get, I’ll link it in the show notes, as well as partially hydrolyzed guar gum, also very great for hydrogen sulfide. And then insulin has been shown as well to inhibit Proteobacteria. So if you tolerate that, I would go extremely slow. But those can be things that you can include in your diet. And at the same time, you’re not only going to improve the hydrogen sulfide, but your just overall gut health in general. There’s tons of other studies on other more nuanced things like even green tea and tumeric and olive oil and blueberry poly phenols. But really, what it boils down to here is variety in fiber, and color. So I would like to close out this episode, with just some encouragement. Hopefully, you’re having some light bulb moments going off at this point, thinking about, hmm, maybe I’ve been approaching my hydrogen sulfide SIBO, or, you know, perceived hydrogen sulfide SIBO. All wrong. And maybe you thought that you just couldn’t eat all these different foods or that you needed to avoid any fermentable, fiber, any FODMAP. Anything that contains sulfur, all the cruciferous vegetables. And I’m here to tell you that that is not true. And we have seen such good results and our clients by actually improving the intake of these foods. And what a relief, right? To know that there are foods that you can include, and seeing food from that perspective of this is actually going to help me versus this is going to hurt me. And I know that when on my own gut health journey, when I had that mindset shift as well, it was like a breath of fresh air finally being able to think oh my goodness, maybe the reason that I feel the way that I do and then maybe maybe the reason I’ve been going downhill year after year after year is because I’m eating less and less and less. And maybe my body needs more and more and more variety. So we’re at the beginning of 2023 it is a great time when people are making resolutions and you know intentions for the year or words of the year. I’m a huge fan of word for the year. If you are you can shoot me a DM and tell me what your word is. And I’ll tell you mine, but maybe it would be a great intention to set of like how can I improve my variety in my diet? How can I try to eat as many colors as possible? It’s very cliche I feel like to say eat the rainbow but like how many different colors can you have on your plate? And how many different things can you like look at your plate and think wow, this is really supporting my overall health. The variety not only in fruits and vegetables, but in nuts and seeds and beans and legumes and grains and even meats and other proteins like your body needs variety. And that’s what I want you to hear from this. And I hope that it is super, super encouraging. So just to kind of To summarize what I spoke about today, and I’ll leave you also just with some quick tips for like a protocol, if you’re a practitioner is that hydrogen sulfide SIBO can be really debilitating. It can be very toxic to the mitochondria, which is why, you know, you or your patient may feel really exhausted, have a lot of brain fog, and feel just really rundown maybe have nerve pain, etc. But the solution is to actually add food in. And there’s lots of mechanisms, you know, behind the nuances here in hydrogen sulfide SIBO. But what we’re particularly particularly looking at is DiSalvo, Vibrio and below phyla. So you can look at those bacteria, and you can research them more. But I just wanted to close off with like some of the things that we use with our clients that we find helpful. And if you’re a consumer, this is in no way a medical prescription, please consult your doctor before trying anything new. And if you want more support, you’re welcome to apply for the Get Together program, we would be honored to support you. We often use zinc acetate to help neutralize gas. zinc acetate is a very poorly absorbed form of zinc. And so essentially what happens is zinc binds to the gas in the small intestine, and it precipitates out as a salt. So we use zinc acetate, I’m not going to give specific dosing because I don’t want people going and like self prescribing, but you can look up the mechanisms here and do more research on these. We also use Vitamin B 12, specifically hydroxy cobalamin. Gas can bind to B 12. And deplete it. So one thing to keep note of with your clients is low levels of B 12 are just that’s part of the low energy piece there. But hydroxy cobalamin can be very help. And then for the mitochondria, specifically, some things that I love, NAC are n acetyl, cysteine quesiton can be great, there’s actually tons of foods that contain quesitons. So that can be a great food based approach. Alpha Lipoic Acid acetyl l carnitine. A comprehensive vitamin can be really helpful. And then the last thing that you really want to look at as well is iron.

Dr. Heather Finley  37:34

You need iron for the gut brain connection to work. So a full comprehensive iron panel can be very helpful, not just like the standard iron markers, you’re gonna get on like a CVC. But looking at ferritin and looking at TIBC. And looking at the other Iron markers, you need robust amounts of iron to make this whole thing work. So you need to check that off for sure. The other things that can be helpful if valves aren’t moving, of course, is pro kinetics or getting the bowels moving. You can neutralize the gas with Bismuth on that something that we often do oregano oil can be really helpful for actually inhibiting the gas. And then as I mentioned, any underlying deficiencies. So really step one, get the bowels moving step to address the underlying deficiencies. Step three, inhibit the gas. So use oregano oil or something else. Step four is neutralize the gas, you can use it you can use bismuth, or, like dev ROM is really great for that. And then five is support the growth of beneficial bacteria. You need that or your client needs that there’s tons of research on it. And you will be off to the races. So I hope that this was helpful. I know it’s a bit more sciency then you may be used to but I hope you learned something new. Whether you are a consumer or a practitioner. Hopefully you had some takeaways. If you have any questions, hop over to Instagram, send me a message. I’d love to chat about this or any just insights that you had. And we’ll see you next week on the next episode of the love regret podcast.

Please note that this episode is not a substitute for medical advice. And you should always consult your healthcare provider prior to making any changes.

I’m giving your gut a thumbs up because you just finished another episode of the love your gut podcast. Thanks so much for listening in to this episode. I hope it was helpful.

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