New evidence points to an unexpected source of metabolic problems and diabesity—a toxic digestive system. As I’ve mentioned, our diet has changed dramatically in the last 10,000 years, and even more so in the last 100 years, with the industrialization of our food supply. This highly processed, high-sugar, high-fat, low-fiber diet has substantially altered the bacteria that historically grew in our digestive tracts, and the change has been linked to weight gain and diabetes.1 Many other modern inventions—including antibiotics, acid blockers, anti-inflammatory medication, aspirin, steroids, antibiotics in our food supply, chronic stress, and even cesarean section births—all injure the gut, alter our gut flora, and lead to systemic inflammation.
Jennifer was a forty-one-year-old flight attendant who had struggled with her health for years—weight problems, bloating after every meal, diarrhea, heartburn, depression, fatigue, premenstrual syndrome, and irregular periods. She was skinny in high school at 120 pounds and then ballooned up to 215 pounds, most of which she carried around her middle. She tried many diets but could never stick with them. She had given up and was eating pizza, ice cream, and lots of Splenda.
When we did her tests, we found not only inflammation with a high C-reactive protein of 7.2 (normal is less than 1), but abnormal digestive function. She had an overgrowth of bacteria in her small intestine (which normally has very few bacteria) that caused fermentation of all the carbs and sugars she was eating. She was bloated because of all the gas produced by the bad bugs as they munched on the starches. In her stool, we found almost no healthy bacteria. We also found many food sensitivities, including dairy, gluten, and eggs. These often occur because the bad bugs in the small intestine cause a leaky gut, and the partially digested food particles leak across the intestinal lining, triggering antibodies. The bad bugs and the food allergens led to inflammation and weight gain.
We treated her obesity and pre-diabetes with nonabsorbed antibiotics that killed the bad bugs in her gut. To help her heal her leaky gut, we got her off the foods she was sensitive to and her acid blockers, and put her on enzymes, probiotics, fish oil, and zinc. Not only did her reflux, bloating, cravings, and PMS go away, but her C-reactive protein went back to normal. She lost 65 pounds as a side effect of fixing her gut and cooling off the inflammation.
Is your gut contributing to your diabesity? Take the quiz below to find out. Remember to take this quiz before you start the program and again after the six weeks are over to measure the “before and after” change in your health. You may need extra individualized support based on your scores; I explain this in Week 6 of the plan.
The health of your digestion mirrors your overall health, and increasingly gut problems are linked to weight gain and obesity. Take this quiz to assess your gut issues. For any symptom you have experienced in the last month, place a check in the “Before” box. Then find out how severe your problem is by using the scoring key below. Place a check in the “After” box after you’ve completed the six-week program to see how much you’ve improved.
If you have found out you have digestive imbalances, you are not alone. They are among the most common reasons people see their doctor. Some of the top-selling drugs of all time are acid blockers such as Prilosec, Prevacid, and Nexium used for reflux, which affects up to 44 percent of the population. Irritable bowel syndrome affects 15 percent of the population and there is no effective drug treatment. Inflammatory bowel diseases such as colitis or Crohn’s are on the rise. Clearly there is something amiss with our digestive systems. Getting your system back in balance will not only relieve your digestive symptoms, but will also help you reverse diabesity. In Part IV, you will learn how to set your tummy right.
Think of your gut as one big ecosystem. It contains 500 species of bacteria that amount to three pounds of your total weight. There are more than 100 trillion microbial cells. There is 100 times more bacterial DNA than human DNA in your body. You are outnumbered! These bugs control digestion, metabolism, inflammation, and your risk of colon and other cancers. They produce vitamins and beneficial nutrients, as well as molecules that sustain your body and your ecosystem through symbiosis.
A whole new field of research has emerged on the human “microbiome” (the community of microbes and their genes within the human gut) and how it affects weight and health.2 In fact, your weight may be controlled more by what your bacteria eat than what you eat. A remarkable study found that mice with sterilized digestive tracts, or no bacteria in their guts, had 42 percent less body fat, despite the fact that they ate 29 percent more calories than the control mice.3 Even more remarkable, when normal bacteria were reintroduced into the guts of those mice, there was a 57 percent increase in body fat and insulin resistance without any increase in food consumption or decrease in exercise. This explodes the myth that weight loss is just a matter of calories in and calories out.
Gut bacteria thrive on what you feed them. If you feed them whole, fresh, real foods, good bugs will grow. If you feed them junk, bad bugs will grow. And bad bugs produce nasty toxins. Instead of symbiosis—a mutually beneficial relationship between you and your bugs—you create dysbiosis— a harmful interaction between bugs and host that damages your gut lining, creating a leaky gut. Partially digested food particles and microbial toxins then “leak” across your gut, triggering an immune response to these “foreign” proteins.
That inflammation, in turn, damages your metabolism, affects how your brain controls appetite, and creates insulin resistance and weight gain. Supplements of probiotics (the good bacteria) can help improve the quality of your gut ecosystem and are potential partners in weight loss.
The process by which bad bugs in your gut produce toxins was described in a paper published in 2007 in Diabetes Journal.4 The study showed how metabolic endotoxemia (the production of toxins from bad bugs in your gut) initiates and promotes obesity and insulin resistance. The findings were striking.
In rats fed a high-fat, low-fiber diet, bad bugs took over. The bad bugs released bacterial toxins called lipopolysaccharides (LPS) into the bloodstream through the gut. These toxins bound to immune cells (white blood cells, or lymphocytes). The white blood cells, aggravated by the bacterial toxins, produced an inflammatory molecule called tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α). This molecule then sets into motion a well-described cascade of inflammation, causing insulin resistance. You know what happens from there. The bottom line is this: The toxic bugs in your gut may make you fat and inflamed.
Improving the quality of your diet with whole, fresh, high-fiber foods can significantly reduce inflammation and the resulting weight gain simply by supporting healthy flora in your intestine. Putting good bugs such as Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, and the healthy type of E. coli back into your gut will help cool the inflammation and help you shed pounds. You may need a special stool test if you are not getting better, but for most people what we in functional medicine call the 4R program works very well: Remove the bad bugs, drugs, and food allergens; replace needed enzymes, fiber, and prebiotics; reinoculate your gut with good bacteria or probiotics; and finally repair the gut lining with omega-3 fats, zinc, glutamine, quercitin, and other healing nutrients. I will explain exactly how to do this in Part IV.
