Author Archives: chrissythehyphenated

The tens of trillions of microorganisms living in your intestines regulate your metabolism, energy levels, satiety, amount of body fat, mood and behavior … for good or for ill. It all depends on whether your gut hosts primarily beneficial bugs or primarily pathogenic bugs. Studies are showing that a preponderance of pathogenic bugs can make you fat.

The good news is that you can easily fix a bad gut biome by ingesting probiotic and prebiotic supplements and foods.

Probiotics are the militant, beneficial bugs that bump off the pathogenic bugs and set up housekeeping in your gut. You can take them in supplement form and/or eat them in raw or fermented plant foods.

Prebiotics are non-digestible compounds that feed the bugs in your large intestines and help them thrive and make lots and lots of babies. Please note that JUST eating prebiotics is not going to heal your gut. The pathogenic bugs eat that stuff too.

Cold potato starch is my personal favorite prebiotic. For some reason, when potatoes are hot, the starch changes to a form that is digestible. Even more oddly, when hot potatoes cool off, the starch changes to a non-digestible form. I like cold potatoes, so often have a bowl of them in the fridge for snacking.

Unsaturated fat can also be useful in healing an unhealthy gut biome. Bile helps control pathogenic bugs in the gut. Eating healthy, unsaturated fats (like coconut oil) will stimulate bile production and help you grow and maintain a healthy gut biome.

Source:

The microbiota–gut–brain axis in obesity. This article appeared in The Lancet. Published since 1823, The Lancet is currently the second ranked medical journal.

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langas/article/PIIS2468-1253(17)30147-4/fulltext

Iodine is essential for healthy functioning of the thyroid gland which, among other things, controls the body’s metabolism. During pregnancy and infancy, it also influences bone and brain development. Adults generally need 150 mcg of iodine per day. Pregnant and nursing women need more.

In the U.S., where iodized salt is commonly used in shakers and processed foods and iodine is used in commercial dairy production, most people get enough. I use sea salt and eat very little of the foods that are either naturally high in or supplemented commercially with iodine. Plus, I am hypothyroid.

So yesterday, I researched 2017 kelp reviews at:

• OnLine Strength (http://onlinestrength.com/kelp-supplements/) and
• Consumer Lab (www.consumerlab.com).

Summary:

• Consumer Lab found three of the kelp supplements they tested contained more iodine than the FDA considers safe. Even worse, one contained arsenic.
• Both sites approved Nature’s Life Icelandic Kelp, but the label itself says, “This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm.” I don’t know what’s going on with that.
• My own price check at Amazon sometimes did and sometimes did not match what the reviews listed.

In the past, I have tested positive for thyroid antibodies (Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis).  At the moment, my thyroid antibody level is normal, but I am cautious about iodine, because too much could trigger a recurrence.

Since the one tablet per day dose of iodine for some recommended brands was considerably higher than I want to take, I chose Country Life Arctic Kelp from Amazon for $8.50. It contains 300 tablets (3 cents each) of 225 mcg of iodine and is eligible for Amazon’s FREE Shipping offer.

For information on the dangers of taking too much iodine, see http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/minerals/iodine#excess.

“Beyond their functions of digestion and absorption, the intestines are also one of the body’s major barriers to invasion. Whatever is in the gut is simply passing through and still belongs to the external world. Only after penetrating the bowel lining do substances and organisms enter the body proper. Since this protective function of the gut tissue is critical to well-being, it is generously supplied with its own local immune system, one that works in coordination with the body’s general immune defenses.” – When the Body Says No, by Gabor Maté, M.D. (p. 137)