Gut Health What Every Person Needs to Know

 AB: Hello and welcome to Simplifi Health. Today we are here with Dr. Uche and Dr. Wade and we are going to kick off Gut health: What every person needs to know. JW: Hey, this is a great topic for me. I just got back from New York and I'm telling you I'm feeling a little fluffy. I ate a little too much pizza on the streets and my gut health is not the best that it could be right now so I am totally excited about today to introduce you all to my good friend and esteemed colleague, Dr. Uche. UO: Hey, how are you? I’m thrilled to be able to share some of insights and passion for gut health with your listeners. JW: Yes, Uche, you’ve been a friend of mine for many years. You not only talk internationally to especially dental audiences but all kinds of audiences about overall health and wellness but you practice dentistry in Canada and you are an author of a fantastic book called The Miracle of Health. I'm just wondering where you are today. UO: I’m in Toronto, it’s my home city. But besides being a dentist I maintain two other certifications. I’m a certified Yoga Instructor. I just got certified yesterday as a Boot camp Instructor at military [south] boot camp. I’m at the World Fitness Expo in Toronto. It’s the world’s largest fitness expo. There’s about 10,000 certified trainers and nutritionists from all over the globe and there are 200 sessions from all aspects of health; nutrition, balanced living, there’s the latest supplements. Everyone looks good here, people walk down with their six packs and [inaudible 00:01:47], it’s not the place to let it all hang out with [inaudible 00:01:50] JW: Glad I'm not there right now, feeling fluffy here in Texas. AB: Nobody's perfect. JW: So let's just hop right into it, what do you think is like the biggest best news lately about gut health? UO: [inaudible 00:02:00] in the last few years, I think an alternative health science has been around for a long time, the greeks were talking about it 2000 years ago. However, since the National Institute of Health, they did the Human Microbiome Project and studied it for five years. They just came out with the first phase in 2012. What they found out about the microbiome, the gut flora, or the hundred trillion single-cells, the organisms in the human body, they said had literally shaken the foundation of medicine and shaken the foundation of nutrition. We’re talking in the last six years which, the other question goes, how can I ever heard about it yet? Because it’s still being looked into by universities and the social [inaudible 00:02:49] how to teach this and they’re looking to see how physicians can use it in the chair side and the bedside conversations. It’s that new but it’s mind blowing. If you can understand it, you can literally start looking at feeling better and being more comfortable within hours because of the intimate connection between gut health, energy, and vitality. JW: You had me at hello. Yeah, we laugh sometimes of how much research is going on right now and yet how long it takes just to get into kind of our everyday practices. You don't practice that way, I don't practice that way, we don't wait five to ten years before we start trying to use it to help people. We're inside miles everyday and I don't think people understand how much dentistry is going to come to play a role in gut health because we really are looking in the mouth which is the portal to the whole digestive tract to begin with. UO: Well the whole saying about “you are what you eat” like people ever would not believe that, everyone put their hand to, “Do you believe you are what you eat?” A thousand people, everyone [inaudible 00:03:59] their hands. However, people would understand, the whole idea is if someone hates the way their skin looks, or the way their butt looks, or they hate their energy, or they wonder why they’re not healing well, most people don’t curse the croissants, the latte, the pizza, and alcohol [inaudible 00:04:18]. But literally, our meat is made up of what we ate over the last thirty days. Our bones are literally made up of the dinners, the lunches, and the breakfasts that we’ve eaten over the last years. Dentists, hygienists, and the whole dental team, we’re in charge of the quality of the gateway in terms of mustocatory functions, saliva, TMJ, and comfort. We literally help people become better at who they are. We help them break down the food, because literally it becomes their hair, their skin, their brains, their hearts, their lungs. I think we often forget, we’re just like put people [inaudible 00:04:53] the teeth and we whiten the teeth, there’s so much more to what we can do and I think that is to have open mind. I think even the dental campuses, our subject matter is broad. It’s not just about fillings and root canals like the public does not know the depths of the CEs, the personal development we get at these courses that we all go to nation and internationally. JW: I completely agree and I think that it's just, although the science has been there for the oral systemic link for many, many years, I think it's now just finally kind of at that tipping point where everybody now isn't questioning it, they actually believe it and now they want to start to understand it and receive it as information from us. AB: Dr. Uche, how do you talk to your patients while you're practicing about their gut health? UO: Yeah, great question. [inaudible 00:05:45] be living it too like I cannot smell like a fast food outlet and be talking to patients about over all balance. Definitely being healthy myself, definitely having bright eyes, definitely having good skin, and fresh breath helps me transfer health message. One of the best ways to get patients to listen in is by story. Many people don’t see their outside lives being pertinent to the filling or how they’re going to heal after an extraction. But when I tell them that a major player of their immune system is the cellular constituents in their stomach like 70% of their immune system is in the GI tract and if I tell them that their immune system is trained by their gut flora, they turn around and go, “I’ve never heard that before,” and then I’ll say, “Your gut flora has a foundation of relationship with fiber.” The business relationship has been dictated by immunologists and microbiologists, not nutritionists. What they’re saying is because the average American and Canadian for that matter eats only a third of the fiber they need everyday, most people’s gut flora is working at half speed. But if the gut flora aren’t getting the fiber needs met, which is prebiotics, they cannot do their job. One of the biggest jobs is to train the immune system. I tell people, “If you want to heal better after the implant, or if you want to heal better after the extraction, or if you want your tissue to be healthier around your [inaudible 00:07:08] years, I need you to eat better quality food.” Most people are thinking, “How about the brushing and flossing?” That’s a part of it. But who you are is dictated by the quality of your foods. That gets people thinking a different, I’m not talking different science, I’m just using words in different ways to engage them in a different way. It’s the chair side conversation that [inaudible 00:07:28] guard my tongue and because I leave it, it seems very authentic. Patients then go, “Where do I go to learn more?” I will share books. I take pictures of book covers and I’d say, “You need to download this book, you need to get this one from Amazon.” You’d be surprised that people actually will go away, “I’ve learned something new today that’s why I come here because I love hearing you share other information that I know that you are engaged in and working on yourself in a nutshell.” AB: That’s fantastic. JW: Well, they do, they’re coming to you for your expertise and knowledge. It does go so far beyond just the teeth themselves that I think they see that as just added bonus and it actually builds in raport and loyalty. Isn't that what it's kind of all about? You’re going to get better care from your physicians or your dentists if actually you create a relationship and stay with them for several years. UO: Exactly, and you’re right about the value added, like everyone seems to go to dentist, get a filling done and extraction done, ortho done, and implant done. However, we start talking about overall health, first they think, “This is outside of your scope of practice.” I also [inaudible 00:08:39] that some of what I read about medical schools, many of them, I think ToPS is one of them, they have some of the most intense nutrition programs in the four years of medical school. Dr. Michael Greger in his book, the M.D Doctor said, he did twenty hours in medical school in nutrition. That is one of the highest amount of hours out of all medical schools in the US which basically then [inaudible 00:09:04] believe that hygienists do at least thirty hours and dentists do almost forty hours. The dentist and hygienist is well within our scope of practice to talk about diet and nutrition. We don’t give it because we don’t think we know enough, which we do, or we think it’s outside our scope of practice which we are in charge of that gateway and we are in charge of how well people chew and swallow. AB: Do you at your practice have a nutritional plan for your patients? Do you help them? Can you guide them to certain things or do you just give them information to look or research or do you actually have a plan for certain people? UO: That’s a great question. We’re in a society with a wellness center just down the hall like for the next door over, there’s a wellness center, there’s massage therapy, naturopathic medicine, they have a chiropractic, not a nutritionist yet, but a naturopath is well-versed in nutrition. But many times though, the discussion food goes well beyond even a five-minute talk, you figure out the average of medical doctor has about eight minutes with the patients. We have, want to have an hour or two hours spending on how big your case is, I know Dr. Jill Wade does big restorative dental cases. But we have a little bit more time I find. Often times, you’re not going to change someone’s runaway train life in a conversation. I’d say it, as a parent, you can hardly get your kids at eighteen to make the bed, how am I in three minutes going to convince for someone to take to eat more apples. I talk about planting the seed, giving some information and saying, “I’ll see you in six months, I’ll see you in three months,” and then I plant the seed of as much more to this, “Don’t miss your appointment, I’m fully booked,” so that’s how I get them in. JW: Okay, so I’m going to geek out a little bit on your for a few minutes because I know so much of what we deal with is trying to really isolate what type of bacteria might be going on in the wrong way in creating not so optimal health in the mouth, be it a true dental infection, bacteria that's causing decay, or bacteria that's causing periodontal disease. So every once in awhile when we identify exactly what that is, we do think about utilizing oral antibiotics to help us get that bacterial burden down because we know how large it is in the overall bloodstream running throughout the rest of the body. So I would love to hear your thoughts on when we do that to somebody because we need to decrease that burden, what else should we be thinking about when we are trying to not destroy the gut health of the patient we’re trying to help? UO: Exactly. Gut health is dictated by the diversity and stability of the single-cell bacteria and used in the body. It’s like a rainforest, everyone of them is important. One gets depleted, the system-wide effects on the whole body. A certain bacteria that depleted and people will have colitis, depleted bacteria and people will have depression. People with cancer are usually lacking a certain bacteria. They have a deficient or unstable system. Anytime we give antibiotics, we’re actually introducing instability because as much as we want to kill some of the P-gingivalis or somebody’s other deadly infections, however, believe it or not, the good bacteria, the friendly bacteria which is about eighty trillion single-cells [inaudible 00:12:26] GI tract are often not just disrupted during the seven-day course of antibiotics. Dr. Robynne Chutkan, she’s a gastroenterologist, she wrote a book called The Microbiome Solution, board certified from Columbia University in New York, says, “The bacteria in your stomach can be disrupted anywhere from six to twelve months.” So up to a year after, our course of amoxicillin, our patient’s stomach GI tracts still are unstable. Can you imagine, then they go on another one for bronchitis, then they’re going to another one because of rosacea, and they’re going another one, there’s something else, and they come back to us years later for pericoronitis and they get another antibiotic from us. Most people are walking around with disrupted GI tracts from bacteria that hasn’t been stable since birth. They’re actually saying that of one in three kids now are born by C-section and every C-section baby, the mom is given antibiotics the day before the surgery, by the time of surgery. Most of us are walking around with disrupted GI tracts and ultimately, [inaudible 00:13:28] have low energy and nutrition to immune systems. But there are some simple solutions for sure. AB: I have a simple question, a dental related question. So premedication, a lot of our patients have to be premedicated so how do you feel about that? What are your thoughts on that? UO: Well, it’s changed now in Canada, like I’ll have something very current here this year, the Canadian Orthopaedic Association, the Canadian Dental Association, and the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease said that there’s no reliable evidence to support antibiotic prophylaxis prior to dental procedures that prevents prosthetic joint infection. They said that routine antibiotic prophylaxis is not indicated by dental patients with total joint replacements nor the patients with pins, plates, or screws. There’s actually more of a chance of an anaphylactic reaction in having a joint being rejected. This is all new and I think the ADA has somewhat something similar, I don’t know the exact word, what their official statement is [inaudible 00:14:33] Association and our Orthopaedic Association is saying the scientific evidence is there. But you wouldn’t know [inaudible 00:14:38] mouth is not in shape anyway, but [inaudible 00:14:42] now I know Dr. Wade is working with cardiologists who want to get patient’s smile and shape for their heart surgeries that a lot of what was [inaudible 00:14:50] surgeons now because they are reading the journals, they’re saying they want their patients to have them [inaudible 00:14:54] ready to go, they want them healthy and no infections. I have a lady come in the other day having a joint replacement a month out. Her orthopedic surgeon said, “Your mouth is going to be stable before I see you.” This is new, this is new for them before they’re able to say, “I don’t care what kind of shape of mouth is in, let’s get the joint replacement in, just use antibiotics [inaudible 00:15:13] for life,” which now they know is that there’s not good scientific evidence to show how antibiotics protect against joint rejection. AB: I think that the message that you just sent out right now was great because everybody who's going to have a surgery or anything like that, their mouths do need to be looked at because of inflammation and people that are going to the chemotherapy or radiation treatment, anything that their mouths definitely need to be looked at. The public doesn't realize that. They need to be more aware of those things as well. JW: Anything that’s going to drop your immune system down, how can you even imagine that you're going to be able to heal properly if you actually do have a low grade chronic infection somewhere else? UO: That’s right, Jill. As you said, anything that makes your immune system work harder. If you have a patient who’s a shift worker like I have [inaudible 00:16:14] American and Canadian patients works shift, rotating shifts, what they now know about sleep in terms of, that’s the only time the immune system is rebooting. What I’ve heard from some experts in Europe say, two specialists have said that our immune system’s on stand by during the day. It only kicks into high gear at night time. Once you have patients who are firefighters, police officers, shift workers, first responders, guest what? Their immune systems aren’t going to work as well. That’s a whole lot of discussion, obviously, but it’s amazing that the implications that come into play as dentist when we do that in patient exam or the recare exam and start asking patients other questions rather than any changes in medical history, we need to ask how are you sleeping these days? JW: Have you been in our office lately? That’s exactly what we do and that's what I'm saying like the longer you're with someone and you create that relationship and I know that about you, I know that you're a firefighter and you work shifts, don't you think that influences my advice to you? It absolutely does. UO: Well, they trust us. I think once dentists are expanding their scope of education like not just taking courses on [inaudible 00:17:28] but now they were taking courses on hopefully nutrition, and a whole body health. Dentistry now is huge, I think patients love that. I think patients are starving for any health care providers that looks at them from head to toe. I think they’re tired of, stressors are important, but when you just look at my pancreas, you just look at my toes, you just look at my nose, or my ears, or my teeth, you’re missing out like to give almost like a concierge treatment where they know their dentist is well-versed in modalities that can help them get completely better so I think with dentists, we can take [inaudible 00:18:01], I think chiropractors about ten years ago were looking like they were going to be the quarterback, but I think as dentists, they see us twice, three times a year, a lot of people only see the doctor once a year, maybe once every two years. We’re perfectly positioned to help people look at the whole body and refer to specialist if they need to. I have patients that I’ve asked, “When was the last time you saw a medical doctor?” and they’ll say, “Four years ago.” I said, “It’s time.” We can hold people accountable, I think. I am interested, I want these people alive, I want them to live long, healthy lives, coming in to see me and I need an able-bodied person with good immune system who’s well-rested and well fed to tolerate and heal from my procedures. JW: Absolutely, I 100% agree. So tell me what one or two or three things you feel like are most important to get somebody's gut health maybe back up to par or maybe they don't even know there gut health is in trouble? What would you say? UO: Okay, great question. I think a big part of it is understanding the value. I think when you know the whys, doing the details is easy. One of the whys is there’s only thirty human enzymes that digest food. What they’ve shown is, this is Dr. [inaudible 00:19:24] epidemiologist at England, show the 6,000 enzymes and the bacteria in origin that digest food, so 6,000. Bacteria acts to digest our food. If you have a diverse stable bacteria, you will make better body parts. One way to have a broad spectrum of bacteria is to eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. But that doesn’t change what our mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers told us from hundreds of years ago because now we know why bacteria are more diverse and stable if our food choices are broader. It’s like granny’s [inaudible 00:19:55] Don’t eat them all the time. Eat gala, eat bread delicious, eat golden, eat some crabapples. The more variety, the more diverse the bacteria and that will be a stronger bacteria and also better able to digest the food, that’s one of them. JW: That's great piece of advice. UO: Yeah, and limit antibiotic use. I think most patients go like beyond drugs anyway. They’d rather not be [inaudible 00:20:15] as little as they have to so limit the exposure like find out if you really need one or find out before you have the antibiotics for the [inaudible 00:20:24] infection, are we going to do a swab and find out exactly if it’s [inaudible 00:20:27]? So go on to take antibiotics, don’t pressure your doctors. I have an ENT specialist as a patient and she said, [inaudible 00:20:36] mom will command a prescription for the kid with ear infection. Meanwhile, she’s having [inaudible 00:20:40] viral, I just see some [inaudible 00:20:41] I don’t see any swollen or [inaudible 00:20:43]. It’s viral and the mom’s still demands one and guess what? She won’t leave until she gets one, guess what? She now has the prescription that’s going to upset her child’s GI tract anywhere from six to twelve months. When I say limit antibiotic, you just not take it but only when their doctor feels it’s urgent so if necessary, that’s what I would say. JW: I love that and the moms listening right now are going to love that. UO: Yeah. Moms know best but they also, they can pressure doctors. I think that prescriptions are given 60% time more by pediatrician if mom insists an antibiotic and that [inaudible 00:21:19] that’s the pediatrician, it’s only 4% at the time. Listen to your doctor like pediatricians know their stuff. One other thing to increase your flora diversity would be exercise. There’s lots of studies that show now that people who are active have more variety and more diversity in their gut flora. The whole idea is being the more variety and stable your gut flora is, the stronger it is, and exercising [inaudible 00:21:40] activity. One more reason too is that it creates more stable gut flora which, don’t forget, the 6,000 enzymes and if you have a stable diverse gut flora, you have more enzymes to digest all the foods which ultimately become a part of us. JW: Fantastic. And so you've touched based on probiotics several times during this podcast, do you have any kind of final thoughts on probiotics and advice? UO: Great question. People often want to [inaudible 00:22:10] people think, “Oh, I’ll just take a probiotics and I’ll be fine,” it’s not that easy. Food is king, whole foods can still [inaudible 00:22:16] fiber, so you’re looking at avocado, vegetables, you’re looking at good source grains, all kinds of foods, very powerful. However, right now, a lot of probiotic studies have been done [inaudible 00:22:30] after antibiotics or [inaudible 00:22:33]. They’ve now shown that healthy population could benefit from our probiotic. This has been a really good study done last year [inaudible 00:22:39] standard study, and what they showed was elite athletes were less likely to be sick in the winter time when they train hard if they take a probiotic. So there’s an immuno protective response if someone takes a probiotic. Probiotics [inaudible 00:22:53] people don’t skimp, you get what you pay for. There’s a really good book by David Perlmutter, it’s called Brain Maker and he identified that multiple strains in the probiotic is best so like at least five to seven. He said, “Refrigerated or room temperature both works, but more people are likely to take the one that’s room temperature because it’s not in the fridge and it’s not forgotten.” [inaudible 00:23:16] I like room temperature probiotics. If you take along yourself doctor [inaudible 00:23:19] yourself? JW: I do. UO: Okay. If people want to get really geeky on the enzyme [inaudible 00:23:27] I have the five really good ones to include; a lactobacillus plantarum, lactobacillus acidophilus, which most people have heard of, lactobacillus brevis, bifido lactis, and bifido longum, the five strains that they do recommend. [inaudible 00:23:50] room temperature is easy to remember, at the same time they’ll make sure you get a variety of strains that really helps to get the bodies seeded better. But it’s not like, someone’s [inaudible 00:24:00] driveway, no grass is going to grow, you gotta throw it on the hurdle field which is a low-rested exercising person or patient that eats wide variety of foods and vegetables. JW: I could talk to you all day but I know you need to get back to the largest Fitness Expo in the world. I really do appreciate you taking some time out to talk with us today. If our listeners wanted to start to follow you on Facebook or I don't know if you have Instagram, what would they need to look up? UO: I know Facebook is really popular so it’s my name, my first and last name, it’s Uche Odiatu. Another one is my website, it’s druche.com. My Instagram is @Fitspeakers. I’m posting usually two to three times a day and [inaudible 00:24:57] I’m reading an article I like to adjust it and bring out the two or three lucid points to help someone. I’m all about taking the odd science, making it real, and then making it doable and easy. I want people to be healthy, I want my patients to be healthy, my team to be healthy, my colleagues to be healthy, so I love sharing everything I know. I think the more I share, the more I empty my cup. The Buddhist say, “It gets [inaudible 00:25:20] with more information.” I love that giving and sharing, giving and sharing and learning. AB: You just filled my cup today. I’m going to tell you that right now. UO: How about you, Jill? JW: Yes, overflowing. AB: So awesome. JW: Thank you again. AB: Thank you. UO: My pleasure. AB: That's it. If you want to learn more information about our podcast, you can go to youniversityhealth.com or relevancehealth.com and that's enough for me, see you later, smile with heart.