Latest / Love Your Gut / Ep. 120: The Cyclospora Outbreak: A Gut Health Dietitians Insights on What It Is, Why It's Spreading, and What to Actually Do

Transcript

Ep. 120: The Cyclospora Outbreak: A Gut Health Dietitians Insights on What It Is, Why It's Spreading, and What to Actually Do · Love Your Gut

• 0:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: Welcome to the Love Your Gut Podcast.
• 0:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: Heather Finley, registered dietitian and gut health specialist.
• 0:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: I understand the frustration of dealing with GI issues because I've been there and I spent over two decades searching for answers for my own gut issues of constipation, bloating, and stomach pain.
• 0:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: I've dedicated my life to understanding and solving my own gut issues.
• 0:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: And now I'm here to guide you.
• 0:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: On this podcast, I'll help you identify the true root causes of your discomfort.
• 0:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you can finally ditch your symptoms for good.
• 0:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: My goal is to empower you with the knowledge and tools you need so that you can love your gut and it will love you right back.
• 0:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if you're ready to learn a lot, gain a deeper understanding of your gut and find lasting relief.
• 0:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: You are in the right place.
• 0:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: Welcome to the love your gut podcast.
• 0:55
  All right.
• 0:55
  Today, we are going there.
• 0:57
  We are gonna talk about what everyone is talking about on the internet, and that is the nasty parasite that is gaining popular attention.
• 1:08
  And first, I want to talk to you about how to not panic about this, and also give you a way to think about this that you're not hearing on the internet, and help you be prepared.
• 1:20
  So what you can do to prevent it, what you can do if you get it.
• 1:25
  So this cyclospora parasite has become what's clogging up my entire Instagram feed, maybe not yours, but you're probably seeing this everywhere, and now you're wondering,"What can I eat?
• 1:39
  What produce can I buy?
• 1:41
  Can we even get any produce?
• 1:44
  Does it all need to be frozen?" So let's talk about that all today.
• 1:48
  We're gonna talk through what's going on, what you can do to prevent it, what you can do if you get it, and all the t- the tips, tricks, et cetera, that you need to know.
• 1:58
  So What is going on right now is there is a very large multi-state outbreak of a parasite called cyclospora, and it is moving across the country.
• 2:11
  The last time I looked, so as of this week, the week of July 13th, there are nearly 7,000 reported cases across 34 states.
• 2:20
  Michigan is one of the top states, and we are now on the map here in Texas too.
• 2:27
  What happens is you get sick, you get watery diarrhea, cramping, that kind of tired that where you're, like, doing the math on whether you can lie down for 20 minutes before the next thing.
• 2:39
  So this is not food poisoning.
• 2:42
  This is much more severe than food poisoning, and I went down a genuine rabbit hole on this because half the advice that's floating around is either fear bait or flat out wrong, and I really want to give you more advice than"Wash your veggies, and just good luck," or just,"Don't eat vegetables." So let's walk through what this actually is, why it's weirdly hard to track, what actually lowers your risk, and exactly what to do if you have it.
• 3:13
  So I just grabbed my whole milk latte, and I'm ready to dive in.
• 3:20
  So let's start with what it is, because I think most of the fear around an outbreak comes from the vague dread of something that's going around with zero framework for it.
• 3:31
  So this specific parasite is a microscopic parasite.
• 3:35
  It is not a bacteria.
• 3:36
  It is not a virus.
• 3:37
  It is an actual parasite, and it has a very particular life cycle that ends up explaining almost everything about how this outbreak behaves.
• 3:48
  So when you swallow this parasite, you swallow it on raw produce.
• 3:52
  It sets up shop in your small intestine.
• 3:55
  Now, if you have listened to any of my episodes for more than five minutes, you know how the small intestine is very important from a digestive standpoint.
• 4:06
  It is where you break down and absorb foods, your minerals, B vitamins.
• 4:11
  It's the middle of your gut assembly line.
• 4:14
  So when a parasite moves in and inflames that stretch of tissue, you don't just get diarrhea and call it a day.
• 4:22
  You get a whole cascade, watery diarrhea, cramping, nausea, bloating, zero appetite, and a lot of fatigue.
• 4:31
  This is not like the, the stomach bug.
• 4:34
  So people typically will lose significant weight, not on purpose, but it's because that assembly line is jammed right where they are supposed to be absorbing their nutrients.
• 4:45
  So the part that really is important is you are extremely unlikely to catch this from another person.
• 4:54
  So you do not need to worry about if someone you know has this and you saw them the day before, if you did not eat the same food as them two weeks ago, you are not gonna get this from them.
• 5:05
  I know that the headlines can be insane, like there's an outbreak, it's in 34 states.
• 5:10
  This is not the flu.
• 5:12
  This is not norovirus.
• 5:14
  When this parasite leaves the body, it is not infectious yet.
• 5:18
  It needs days to weeks out in the environment, in soil, water, at the right temperature to mature to the form that it can actually infect a person.
• 5:29
  So that means practically your kid can have this, and you are not gonna catch it from sharing a bathroom.
• 5:36
  Same thing with your coworker.
• 5:37
  If your coworker has it, it doesn't mean that you're going to have it.
• 5:41
  So where does this come from?
• 5:44
  This comes from upstream.
• 5:47
  It got into the produce through contaminated water or soil at the growing or washing stage long before that food came anywhere near your kitchen.
• 5:56
  That's the entire story of this parasite.
• 5:58
  It rides on the food.
• 6:00
  So this parasite, like I said, it's not norovirus, it's not some kind of stomach bug, and it has that specific pattern of, like, relapse.
• 6:10
  So, you feel great for a couple days, and then the symptoms can definitely come back.
• 6:18
  So you might get the watery diarrhea, cramping, et cetera.
• 6:23
  Then maybe you feel great, after a few days, and then unfortunately, a couple days later, it can come back.
• 6:29
  So if you do get this and you think,"Oh, I'm out of the woods," you definitely don't wanna stop any of the supports that I'm recommending until you know for sure that it is gone Because what I have read, and the most consistent thing that I've read, is that the diarrhea can last, like, 50-plus days.
• 6:49
  I saw somewhere 57 days.
• 6:51
  Fifty-seven days.
• 6:52
  This is not a stomach bug.
• 6:53
  So we wanna try to prevent this if possible.
• 6:56
  If your gut has been off for two or three weeks with diarrhea that will not go away, this is probably what you have, unless you have some kind of other diagnosable GI condition.
• 7:11
  So let's chat through why this outbreak is such a headache for the people trying to solve it.
• 7:17
  With something like E.
• 7:19
  coli or salmonella, you can do genetic fingerprinting.
• 7:23
  They'll take the bug from the sick person in Ohio and then the bug from a sick person in Michigan.
• 7:29
  They will compare their genetic sequences, and if they match, they know they're chasing one source, and they trace it back through the supply chain to see where it came from.
• 7:39
  So cyclospora does not play along this way.
• 7:43
  The gene-matching tools that work great for bacteria don't translate to this parasite.
• 7:49
  So a lot of the investigators are squinting at a much blurrier picture, which is why, as of right now, they still don't know where...
• 7:58
  What is contaminated.
• 7:59
  The investigation keeps circling lettuce and bagged salad greens, and one large produce company, Taylor Farms, has been named in connection.
• 8:08
  But I also wanna be careful and precise because named in connection is not the same as confirmed.
• 8:15
  So no specific grower, no specific product as of the day that I'm recording this has officially been pinned yet.
• 8:22
  I would rather tell you exactly where this uncertainty is than pretend I know more than I do.
• 8:28
  The only other thing I know is that a number of real cases is probably way higher than 7,000 because most people who get a week of diarrhea never get tested.
• 8:39
  They never do anything about it.
• 8:41
  They just ride it out.
• 8:43
  So basically, who knows actually how many people have this.
• 8:48
  And then last thing before I move on, um, in 2025, after funding and staffing cuts at the public health agencies, CDC scaled back on foodborne illness surveillance systems.
• 9:00
  So when you're sitting there wondering why nobody can tell you what food it is, that is why.
• 9:07
  There's just less surveillance, slower answers.
• 9:10
  That's that.
• 9:11
  I'm not gonna turn this into a political episode.
• 9:13
  But that brings us to the part that you actually have control over, which is where I would rather spend our time anyways.
• 9:20
  Washing your produce helps, but it does not solve this issue.
• 9:26
  This parasite specifically, they adhere tightly to the surface of fruits and vegetables, which means that rinsing is gonna lower your risk, but it cannot be counted or guaranteed to get them all off.
• 9:39
  And then that pre-washed or triple washed label that's on your bag of greens, that is not a safety guarantee.
• 9:45
  So rewashing your bag of triple washed lettuce is still going to be essential here.
• 9:51
  I know that's more time-consuming, not the best answer, but you would much rather not get this.
• 9:57
  So how do you actually kill this thing?
• 10:00
  You kill it with heat.
• 10:01
  Cooking is the one lever that we actually know reliably kills this thing.
• 10:07
  When you get food to 158 degrees Fahrenheit, it inactivates this parasite.
• 10:13
  So that is the m- intervention with real evidence behind it, and the one that I would lean the hardest on right now.
• 10:19
  For the next few weeks while the source is still a mystery, then I would recommend sauteing your greens, wilt your spinach, roast your veggies, make soup in July if you want to.
• 10:30
  But there's a bonus here I talk about constantly anyways, and which is that cooked vegetables are actually often much gentler on an irritated gut than a giant raw salad.
• 10:41
  So if you have been dealing with GI issues, perhaps maybe you might notice that when you switch to cooked vegetables, you actually feel a lot better.
• 10:49
  So consider this your permission slip to just do a little experiment, cook your kale, and maybe your gut will thank you as well.
• 10:58
  So the update that I actually changed since actually writing this episode is a good one.
• 11:04
  The Michigan Health Department is now specifically recommending that people buy whole heads of lettuce instead of pre-washed lettuce and pre-mixed salad kits.
• 11:15
  So if you're going to eat raw greens, a whole head that you break down and wash yourself is better right now than the bagged stuff.
• 11:23
  So peel your produce where you can.
• 11:25
  Cut away any bruised or damaged spots.
• 11:27
  That's where organisms like to hide.
• 11:29
  You can scrub things with a produce brush.
• 11:32
  Wash your hands.
• 11:33
  All of that is worth doing Another tip that I have, which maybe you've heard of, maybe you haven't, is ozone washing.
• 11:41
  I know that many people have ozone systems because they're really effective at washing produce, and this parasite is notoriously tough.
• 11:53
  Like I said, they shrug off a lot of these standard rinsing methods.
• 11:58
  There's not solid evidence that ozonated water reliably removes or kills this parasite specifically on produce, but it certainly is not going to hurt.
• 12:08
  I personally have one of these.
• 12:10
  I will link it in the show notes.
• 12:12
  It is the Therasage one.
• 12:13
  It's really easy to use.
• 12:15
  But if you have an ozone setup, you wanna use it, go for it.
• 12:19
  That may add a layer of protection if you get sick of raw vegetables, but the heat is still going to be the best thing for it.
• 12:27
  Another thing that I would highly recommend is buying local.
• 12:31
  When you buy local, you are going to decrease your risk.
• 12:36
  This parasite gets in through fecal contamination of water or soil at the growing stage.
• 12:41
  So that can happen anywhere, of course, on a farm ten miles from your house just as easily as across the country.
• 12:49
  Distance traveled is definitely not the risk factor, but knowing your grower, knowing your source is a good thing.
• 12:55
  And if you have a relationship with a farmer at your farmer's market, you can ask some really solid questions and maybe feel comfortable buying produce there Okay, so now you've been listening to this whole thing, and you're like,"Okay, I'm gonna eat cooked vegetables, but what if I ate something two weeks ago and I get this?" So here's what I want you to do in this order.
• 13:19
  Number one is go and get tested and treated, and ask for the right test.
• 13:25
  So when this parasite, when you find out you have this parasite, you do need to treat it, specifically with either antibiotics but you need to work with a practitioner to address it.
• 13:39
  You have to clear the parasite.
• 13:41
  The common antibiotic that they're gonna use for this is Bactrim.
• 13:45
  So this parasite is not gonna show up on a routine stool panel.
• 13:49
  Your provider has to specifically order the right test to make sure that they're testing for this.
• 13:56
  There is no supplement protocol that we know of that has evidence for clearing this.
• 14:02
  And if you leave this untreated and it drags on for weeks, remember, it can last 57 days, riding it out with a cabinet full of antimicrobials means possibly staying sick longer, dehydrated, staying miserable.
• 14:17
  And while, yes, possibly taking antibiotics is not the best thing, sometimes you have to do what you have to do.
• 14:24
  So you don't wanna reach for antibiotics casually, but you also don't want y- to become extremely depleted and exhausted and dehydrated over 57 days.
• 14:37
  Number two, hydration is a non-negotiable.
• 14:41
  The hospitalizations in this outbreak are largely from dehydration.
• 14:45
  So when you have this bad of watery diarrhea or this severe of watery diarrhea, it's going to pull fluid out and pull minerals right out.
• 14:55
  So you really need to make sure that you are drinking enough water.
• 14:58
  And then three making sure that you are getting minerals in it.
• 15:03
  You want to make sure especially that you're repleting things like sodium and potassium and magnesium.
• 15:09
  This is not like a just add a pinch of minerals.
• 15:13
  Like, heavy dose the minerals.
• 15:14
  If you don't have my mineral guide, go ahead and download that.
• 15:18
  I'll link it in the show notes another thing that you want to do, the fourth thing, is support your gut.
• 15:23
  So if you are in- on antibiotics, you want to support your gut through Saccharomyces boulardii.
• 15:29
  That's the first thing that I think of, and it's very, very helpful for supporting the gut during antibiotics.
• 15:37
  It's a beneficial yeast, not a bacteria, which means the antibiotic that you're taking doesn't wipe it away like it would a bacterial probiotic.
• 15:46
  It has really good evidence for infectious diarrhea, antibiotic-associated diarrhea, so it's very helpful.
• 15:52
  Another thing that my mind goes to is immunoglobulins.
• 15:56
  I keep these on-hand at my house all the time.
• 15:59
  When your small intestine has been under attack and then run through a course of antibiotics, that gut lining hit is so real.
• 16:08
  So immunoglobulins can help support your gut while it recovers.
• 16:12
  You can think of it like a scaffolding on a building when the actual repairs are happening.
• 16:17
  Minerals and electrolytes are gonna be so important.
• 16:20
  Saccharomyces boulardii is gonna be so important.
• 16:22
  Immunoglobulins are gonna be so important.
• 16:24
  But then the most important thing is the rebuild after, and this is the part that I care about the most because it's the part that almost nobody's gonna do.
• 16:34
  After an infection like this, you've got a small intestine that has been inflamed, a microbiome that has just been through antibiotics, mineral status that's been stretched.
• 16:44
  Most people just go back to their normal life, and then six months later they wonder why their digestion feels different.
• 16:50
  So after you take antibiotics, you wanna make sure that you're doing a proper refair- repair phase with adequate immune support, spore-based probiotics, immunoglobulins, et cetera.
• 17:03
  I will link some specific things in the show notes that I keep in my cabinet, like the Saccharomyces boulardii and the immunoglobulins You don't need to go panic buy all these supplements, but it's also not a bad idea to just have a few things on hand so that when you need them, you have them.
• 17:20
  I keep them on hand for any kind of food poisoning incident or sickness, and it's always so nice to know I don't have to run out to the store,'cause most of these things you can't find in just a regular grocery store, so it's nice to know that you have them.
• 17:36
  So here's what I want you to walk away with.
• 17:38
  The thing that makes an outbreak like this scary is the not knowing.
• 17:42
  It's the, that low hum of"Something's going around.
• 17:45
  I don't wanna get it." you don't have to live in fear but you do wanna be careful.
• 17:51
  So this is, this parasite rides on food.
• 17:54
  It's not one that you can catch from people.
• 17:57
  And if you're having that relapsing, weeks-long pattern, go get tested, go get treated so that you can then focus on rebuilding your gut after, so you don't end up with symptoms months later.
• 18:12
  Your gut is not being dramatic if you get this.
• 18:15
  It's just responding to something that is very real, and knowing what it is, is what's gonna actually help you.
• 18:22
  So wanted to just provide you some tips for addressing this and preventing this if you are worried about getting it, and I hope that you don't.
• 18:33
  But I will link all this in the show notes.
• 18:36
  I hope that this is helpful, and I'll catch you next week on the Love Your Gut podcast.