Latest / Empower Your Menopause / Episode 60: Gut Check — What Midlife Digestion is Really Telling You

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Episode 60: Gut Check — What Midlife Digestion is Really Telling You · Empower Your Menopause

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back to Empower Your Menopause, the show about health, happiness, and hormones for women over 40.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Coach Julie here with my partner in crime, Coach James from Fabulous Beyond 40.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And just a quick heads up before we dive into today's episode, which is going to be good.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Our free 360-degree feel better challenge starts on September 15th, which is Monday.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you would love, we would love to have you join us if you're interested.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Over the course of five days, we are going to cover five key pillars of optimal health, which is how you think, eat, move, relax, and sleep.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: You'll get one very doable action per day because we know you're all very busy.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll have daily short live videos, and there's even a prize draw for three-month membership in Club Fabulous Beyond 40.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's a VIP level, which is worth about 500 pounds or$675 in the US by today's exchange rate.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: So if you'd like to join us, grab your spot at 360 feelbetterchallenge.com, and of course, we'll put the link in the show notes.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, all right, today we're talking about your gut.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And not just about bloating or maybe your bathroom habits, although, yes, we are going to go there too because it's an important part.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: But your gut is very connected to your hormones and your brain and your mood and well, basically everything in your body.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a really important topic.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we're gonna dive right in.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: So let's unpack what's really going on here.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks, Julie.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Great intro.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean, let's be real, right?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: We all go to the bathroom.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter who you are, you have to go to the bathroom.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: And this is right with my wheelhouse as a nutritionist, a nutrition therapist, because how we process food makes a real difference to all of us.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: And the gut microbiome that we're going to talk about today, part of your gut health, is really, really important.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's huge, it's a massively growing subject, and it's a kind of area that we're learning stuff about all the time.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: And most of us think about gut health when we're bloated, when we're constipated, sprinting to the loom, maybe ate something that didn't agree with us.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: But your digestive system is not just there for processing food.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it does that, but it does lots of other stuff too.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's got this entire ecosystem in there.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Think of it like a huge jungle, right?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Where you've got sort of like plants in proliferation and then smaller plants trying to push through.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and within all that, that ecosystem, of course, because we are talking about women 40 and above, when you hit midlife and estrogen starts to start fluctuating at first, then starts to drop.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: That affects how the ecosystem actually lives, how it works, how it all comes together.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: So your gut, as a woman over 40, handles many, many things.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, just a few.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: I talked about estrogen just there, that's one of them.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: How your brain manages mood, whether your genes fit comfortably, there are specific bacteria that play a role or don't, or some that don't play a role when it comes to to weight loss, and also your immune function as well.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, immune is really, really important, obviously.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: You want to be as healthy as possible.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, if you're not paying attention to your gut right now, hopefully by the end of this podcast, you will be because unless you are paying attention to it, you're probably missing one of the biggest levers that you can manipulate and play around with from a natural perspective for feeling better in menopause.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, Julie, that's kind of like an overview of the thing.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us, you know, just give us your gut basics and microbiome 101 then.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's delve into this in a bit more detail.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: So when we talk about gut health, we're talking about literally trillions of microbes that live in your intestinal tract.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, they're they're part of what's called your microbiome.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And again, as James said, we're focused on the gut today, but these are the micro uh microscopic bacteria that live around your body, on your skin, in your mouth, and your vagina.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the one most people know about is the one in your gut.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: So these little tiny tenants actually outnumber your human cells, right?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is, I mean, trillions.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: So they're not just along for a happy ride.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: We need to take care of them and pay attention.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's been a lot of research.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one report from Nature Review's gastroenterology and hepatology, because yeah, we like to do exciting things when we're not broadcasting.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it shows that your gut microbiome is absolutely key when it comes to metabolism, immunity, and even how you respond to stress, right?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not about having one superbug in your gut, it's about having diversity among these different kinds of microbes.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when you look at probiotics and yogurt, you look at different kinds of probiotics, right?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: They have different sorts, there are lots of different kinds.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: So the greater the variety of those that you have in your gut, the more resilient your entire system is going to be.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been shown that people who eat a wider variety of plant foods tend to have stronger, healthier microbiomes.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we keep telling you eat your veggies, eat your fruit.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is really important stuff, and and here's why.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: So your your poo or poop in the US is basically like a report card that you get every single day.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you get it daily and sometimes you don't, but it's really important to pay attention to your stool, your bathroom habits.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you need some reference points, there's a tool called the Bristol Stool Chart.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually a real medical tool, not a social media quiz, I promise.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's something that you might want to familiarize yourself with just to get a measurement of where you're at with your bathroom habits.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I just don't recommend looking it up while you're eating.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's really handy to understand.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Another reason why gut health matters so much is that, as James said, your immune system is housed in your gut.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: 70% of your immune system is housed in your gut.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think about people eating junk food all the time and living on fast food and packets of things, it's no wonder why we are so often sick.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: When your microbiome is thriving, your defenses are going to be much stronger.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: So when it's off, you can expect things like more inflammation and just generally feeling run down, not to mention bloating and feeling backed up and such.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, we actually use functional stool testing with our clients because those those results can often hold the key to what's really happening in the digestive tract and things that might not be visible through other normal testing that the that the physicians do.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we get some pretty surprising answers sometimes.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, I know that poo and stool are things that some people find difficult to discuss.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, maybe it's not glamorous, but it is universal.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you, me, Beyoncé, the Dalai Lama, the Pope, everybody poops.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to use the information that it's providing because it really gives us a great look at what's going on inside our body.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the bigger picture of kind of how your gut works from day to day, why those trillions of little microbial tenants in your body are so important.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: But things get again get even more interesting when we look at midlife hormone fluctuations and add those to the mix.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, Jane, this is more your wheelhouse, you want to dig into how the chefs and estrogen change what's happening.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, it's fascinating.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: We talked a little bit about stool testing there, and in so I graduated first as a nutrition therapist in 2017.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what, eight years ago.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And the technology that is used for stool testing in those eight years has improved beyond recognition from what it was.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: So before they used to be able to give you sort of like an idea of what was going on in your gut, sort of like the various families of bacteria, now they can get down to real nitty-gritty levels, like hundreds and thousands of different types of bacteria, and they can do that because now they can actually look at the individual DNA of the bacteria.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: If you're thinking to yourself, bacteria, that is pretty gross, you know.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: These guys and girls, they they them have been living with us and alongside us in this symbiotic relationship since man first walked the earth.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, try to see your microbiome as something that tells you a lot about yourself, but something that you can do a lot about and you can do a lot of looking after, and that can have a massive, massive attack effect on your health.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, one of the things that we've learnt about the microbiome as these tests have improved and people have done more research into it, is there's something else called the estroboloum, right?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, this is basically, you know, to put it in layman's terms, it's a group group of gut microbes that can help regulate your estrogen levels.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's important at all times, you know, estrogen is great, it does so many things for a woman's health.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's important to recognise that yes, estrogen dropping can cause some problems, but yes, also estrogen going too high can cause lots of problems as well.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so the estrobolum, when it works well, it helps your body process and clear estrogen properly, and you want that to happen because what can happen otherwise, it can get reabsorbed, used estrogen can get reabsorbed back into the bloodstream, and then it causes other challenges as well.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: So when estrogen does start that sort of like lumpy up and down declining perimenopause and then tails off during menopause, your whole estrobolum, that part of the microbiome that deals with estrogen tends to become more fragile.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's all kinds of research out there.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that we picked up on is another amazing name for uh for a scientific publication, Frontiers in Endocrinology.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: That shows that when your volume gets out of balance, your body really struggles to recycle or eliminate estrogen in the way that it that it should.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that can show up in many, many different ways.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them, if you're listening to this podcast, I'm betting my house that you recognize, right?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking about bloating, we're talking about digestive changes, we're talking about mood swings, we're talking about shifts in how and where you store fat.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: So they're just five of the many, many symptoms that are sort of like reported in menopause and perimenopause that are directly affected by this potential imbalance of the estrobolum.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it doesn't take a lot to throw the balance off either.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: On top of the declining estrogen that happens anyway, you know, think about other things that could that affect your gut health.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Antibiotics.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Antibiotics do not discriminate between the good bacteria that we want in our gut and the ones that can cause us damage if they run out of control.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Antibiotics kill the whole lot, and so that is a real challenge for your gut.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: High stress has a dreadful effect on your microbiome.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Living on low fibre convenience food is also going to disrupt things, um, and all those things tend to especially have an effect on the ones that keep estrogen on the straight and narrow.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, this is the kind of thing that we see a lot.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like classic midlife moment, genes are feeling tighter even though the scales are not budged, that bloating's coming up and everything.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of that can be done, can be down to your estroboloum, sorry.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just your microbiome, it isn't just related to that as well, it also plays a huge part in how we think our cognitive function.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: And Julie, I'm gonna hand this one back to you because I think I've probably talked a lot about the estrobolo.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: But let's talk about the gut brain hotline then, and then what goes on there and that and how that can be affected in menopause transition.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Our guts and our brains are best friends, right?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: What do they say?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: BFF?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know the lingo.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they they really are basically on speed dial with each other.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it may surprise you to know that most of the communication between the brain and the gut actually go from the gut and to the brain via the vagus nerve, right?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a super highway that carries all of those signals back and forth.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we look at things like serotonin, which is one of your happy hormones.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: 90% of it, more or less, is made in the gut.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so there's been again more, we have plenty of research here in Nature Microbiology, another exciting magazine or journal.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: It they actually confirmed in a study that the gut microbiome directly influences serotonin production and signaling.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: So when your digestion is off, your brain is going to know.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And how many of us have had things like brain fog or difficulty focusing or dips in our mood, trouble sleeping, busy brain?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, these things aren't all in your head.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: It is part of the menopause journey.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I guess technically it is in your head, but it all started in your gut.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the things that affects these super common symptoms.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: What we eat, what we put into our body, makes a huge difference in how we experience menopause in all of those systems.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, since your brain and your gut are constantly chatting back and forth, it makes sense that how you eat, how you move, how you live your daily life, all of those lifestyle habits that we keep talking about would have a huge impact on that conversation.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that brings us to the part everybody can use right away.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of the things we can actually do about this?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now we've hopefully convinced you that this is important.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: What can we do to love our gut?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's look.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mentioned that the gut looks a little bit like a jungle with all these various life forms growing, some more in proliferate proliferation, some lesser.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it might help if we just took that analogy into more modern terms and didn't think about a jungle, but thought about a garden.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: And in your garden, what do you do?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: You try and remove some of the weeds because they don't make it look as pretty.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you if you do, if you're one of those people who wants to do natural gardening, you try and make the the weeds look pretty, you try and make your grass grow better, you try and make your flower beds nicer.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: So all these kind of things are kind of what we want to look at when it comes to the gut.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And in my opinion, and when you look at the science and you look at the stool tests and things like that, and these functional stool tests, Julie and I were talking about before, this is not, you know, it's wrong to characterize bacteria as good and bad.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a war between good and evil, and you know, we're just gonna chuck loads of good guys in there, and they're they're gonna go in with these huge machine guns and kill all the bad bacteria.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: You kind of don't want that because you don't want any of these subspecies of microbes to actually get out of balance.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, the one thing that we asked about immediately, and I'll just dive into this before I delve into some of the things what to do, is sort of like probiotics and prebiotics.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: What are they?
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, I'll just talk about that very briefly before I go on to some other things to to talk about.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, a probiotic is adding bacteria into your gut.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you will see that um they often have really high counts on there.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we talked about in the in the billions, a small capsule might have like billions and billions, 16 billion, 50 billion different bacteria in it.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Probiotics therefore add bacteria into the gut.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Whether those bacteria hang around in the gut is a moot point, and they probably don't.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: They probably pass through and do the job that you want them to do on the way out.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: They don't actually colonize the gut, they don't do a huge takeover.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, what the other category that I mentioned is prebiotics, and prebiotics is probably more important and more important when it comes to how we can work naturally.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, you can get a prebiotic pill, capsule powder that you're mixing with tea, coffee, milk, water, juice, whatever it might be.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: And this is food that feeds preferentially the good bacteria in inverted commas, the ones that we want to be in higher proliferation because they do a better job of serving us within our general health altogether, but also in when it comes to that estrogen metabolism that I talked about before in there.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: So and so a lot of the advice that we're going to talk about is about adding prebiotics in some way naturally, because there are lots of natural ways to do it.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Julie talked before about you know, like having a real diversity of plants and high fibre are two of the key things.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: But the first thing that I like to kill when it comes to this element is you know, those kind of detox teas that you see advertised everywhere.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Forget them.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's Instagram in a tea bag, pretty packaging, not much substance, likely to be a waste of your time and your money.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: If your liver and your kidneys are working properly, you're detoxing properly anyway.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: And for your liver and kidneys to work properly, you need a good variation of plant foods, and you also need high levels of fibre.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, these are things that come in in so many different ways, but particularly when it comes to things like your gut microbiome.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, fibre, really, really important.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: 2022 study in another journal, nutrients.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they did a meta-analysis.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: A meta-analysis is like the top, top level of scientific studies.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's where they take all the other scientific studies that have happened and then they work out what the overall message is from them.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: So you, if you ever, if you've ever looked at any scientific studies, you'll see that quite often there can be 16 people, 50 people, 100 people.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's very hard to extrapolate those numbers into a wider population.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's much easier when you do a meta-analysis and you look at all the information that's out there from all the studies that are out there into a particular subject, and you and then you find out what the advice is from all of that.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that study in nutrients show that higher fibre improves your microbiome diversity and reduces inflammation.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now, reducing inflammation in your gut is really, really important because if your gut is inflamed, that is where a lot of the challenges come from.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're looking at probably around 25 to 30 grams, are the basic recommendations in the I think it's 25 grams in the US, 30 grams here in Europe.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Is how much you need a day.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Where can you get that from?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: You can get it from beans, you can get it from lentils, you can get it from vegetables, you can get it from fruit, you can get it from oats, you can get it from seeds, lots and lots of different places, mainly plant-based, you might notice, which brings me on to plant diversity.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: One of the phrases that's come up so often over the last 10 years or so that I've been studying nutrition is eat a rainbow, eat as many different coloured vegetables as you can.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason for that is because each colour, each pigment that is in a vegetable, uh tends to have different health benefits, and so that's why you want to have as many colours as possible.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: So here's a challenge for you.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Next week, when you do your shopping, try and get 30 different fruit and vegetables into your diet over the course of the following week.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: So when you go to the supermarket, look for the different colours, get them in and see if you can get 30, not 30 different colours of vegetables, try and get all the colours, but try and get 30 different ones.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: So say the seven primary colours, maybe four of each, and see if you can add those in.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Our good old friend, water rears its lovely head again, you know.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's great for your gut.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Wine, unfortunately, ladies, we say it all the time, we're not the alcohol police, but your gut bugs aren't great fans of Merlot, so you know maybe think about cutting back on wine, having a little bit more water, rotating between the two.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's advice that you probably already know, but can also have added effects.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes to your gut health.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: And again, advice that you already know, but has an effect on your microbiome and your gut.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's moving your body, it's walking, it's lifting weights, it's dancing around the kitchen.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: All stuff that helps manage our good old friend.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: Stress, and believe me, we've talked about stress being the enemy of perimenopausal and menopausal women probably a gazillion times, and we're only on episode 60 of this podcast.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we've talked about it a lot, right?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: But it's gonna come in again, once again, here because stress has an absolutely dreadful impact on your gut.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, irritable bowel syndrome is called irritable because your bowel is irritated by something, it's stressed out by something.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: So believe me, it stress plays an absolutely huge, huge role.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you will know that from phrases that have passed down into modern language, you know, like having butterflies in your tummy and you know, your tummy rumbling and things like that.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: All that is upset in real life, in some way, whether it's positive or negative, having an effect on your gut down the line.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, think about all that stuff.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think I've probably ranted on a little bit there.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, Julie, I'm gonna ask you to come back in because you know we're coming up to the last five minutes or so of the pod.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do a quick review for everybody of what we've talked about.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, okay.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: I know some of this has been quite science-y, so okay, let's let's review what we've covered in class today.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wait.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is something we want you to take seriously.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is something that you know you need to understand because your gut isn't only about digestion, it's constantly influencing your entire body function from your immune system to your hormones, moods, brain function, energy, everything.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, in menopause, as we said, the shifts in estrogen can change the way that behaves.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: The estroblome gets involved, our gut lining can become a bit more leaky, we can end up more bloated, constipated, or the opposite end and have regular bouts of diarrhea.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Hormones can go into chaos if we're not paying attention.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And these are things that we have a lot of control over.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the great news, right?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And since your gut and your brain are constantly talking to each other, and most of that chatter goes from the gut into the brain, when you decide to ignore it and just pop those antacids or whatever, your mood and your focus and your sleep and your health are going to pay the price.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, the as I said, the good news is the stuff that works isn't fancy.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I I just cringe every time I see these special teas and special supplements and special products and programs that basically just it's like asking for diarrhea in a tablet.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's not helping anything.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: Your body's designed to take care of itself when you give it the right environment, and the gut is the best place to start.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, fiber, vegetables and fruits, hydration, movement, managing your stress.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's not very sexy, but this is what actually works.
• 25:35
  unknown: Yeah.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so thanks, Julie.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: If this episode hit home, we'd like to invite you once more to join our free 360-degree feel better challenge.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: It starts Monday, September the 15th.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's this Monday coming up, if you're listening in the first day or two that this podcast came out, of course.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Five days, five pillars, think, eat, move, sleep, relax.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: One simple action each day, short video each day.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be a lot of fun.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: We've got a special Facebook group dedicated to it.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is the prize draw to where you can win that prize of three months VIP coaching with myself and Julie in Club Fibers Beyond 40.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Worth 500 pounds, 670 something dollars, I think it is.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so grab your spot at 360 feel betterchallenge.com.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'll also put that link in the show notes.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: One other thing to say on gut health before we go.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: If I ran the National Health Service in the UK where I live, or if I'd moved to America and ran it in America or any other country that I live in, one of the things that I would get them to do, which I think would save a lot of money in the long run, is to do a comprehensive functional stool test annually for people.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot believe the amount of information that you get from it.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: They are cheap, they're about 400 pounds or 600 somewhere around there.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: But the results that you can get from doing one, if you're troubled, particularly with digestive challenges during menopause, is massive.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, because it actually gives you a proper roadmap of where you are and where you need to go.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want any help on that, drop us a line and we can hook you up with uh a testing kit.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: We don't make any money from the testing itself, by the way, we only help you interpret it.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's it for this week, then.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Drop us an email about stool testing or join us at 360 feel betterchallenge.com for the challenge that starts on Monday.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's been James and Julie from Fabulous Beyond 40.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see you next week.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Until then, stay strong, stay fabulous.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.