Hannah Aylward (00:05.944)

Welcome to the Nutrient Dense Podcast. I’m your host, Hannah Aylward, holistic health coach, functional gut health practitioner, and the founder of HAN. So many people are continuously failed by conventional and alternative healthcare. We are here to do it differently. Alongside my team of functional registered dietitians, I’ve helped hundreds of women around the world overcome their chronic digestive issues when nothing else worked.

I’ve learned a thing or two about what it really takes to transform your health from the inside out. And I’m here to share it all with you. Please keep in mind that this podcast is for educational purposes only and should never be used as medical advice. Now let’s dive in. Your transformation is waiting. Hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Nutrient Dense podcast. I’m so excited to be here with you today because today I’m actually joined by two of the incredible women

on my team. Both are functional medicine trained registered dietitians. And we’re really going to just jump into a little like round table Q and a for you guys. So you guys can get to know my team. You can get to hear more about them. And these questions really came in from the community. So I asked on Instagram, what questions you guys wanted answered, and we’re just going to kind of round table different topics. So we’ll be covering things like probiotics, SIBO, histamine overload, some questions about mold detox.

and a lot of other great ones. So I’m gonna kind of kick it off by allowing my team to introduce themselves. Welcome ladies, thanks for being here. And we’ll kick it off with you, Eli. Woo!

Eli Evangelista (02:12.366)

So excited to be here and get to meet some people, talk to some people. Hello, my name is Eli, Eli Evangelista. I’m a registered dietitian. I have done lots of functional nutrition training through the Academy of Integrative and Functional Nutrition, also through the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. So that’s really the lineage that I follow when I do work through hand is the functional nutrition piece.

which very much means we’re looking at the whole picture when we’re working on someone’s health, which is really where I have found a lot of relief in my own story and also with the people I’ve worked with. So I will just introduce my story a little bit and how I got here. So I had my own health journey as many of us have to get to this place. I had digestive issues since I was a kid.

and it kind of manifested until I got to a point after college where I had physical body pains that no one could explain with no like doctor scan could explain to me. So there was a point when I kind of felt like, okay, if the professionals can’t figure it out, who can? And started getting more into this functional nutrition space, learning about the connection between the brain and the gut.

And that’s the path I followed. I did my own gut tests and that’s really what led me into figuring out what was at the root cause for me and unwinding my digestive issues. And yeah, it was such a life-changing experience for me. And so that’s why I ended up doing this work with other people. And it’s so gratifying to get to see people make a similar type of recovery. So that’s me and now I’m happy on the team.

Yeah.

Yes, I love it. What would you say is your favorite part about the work, Eli?

Eli Evangelista (03:37.45)

My favorite part about the work, man, I get the most gratification when someone can go all the way to the root cause, because typically the root is, you know, digestive issues for sure. And even beyond that stress levels. I love to be the person that can help people understand what stress actually is and how to actually move through it. So it’s not, you don’t get these recurring digestive symptoms ongoing.

Yeah, I love that. A lot of like rewiring the patterns and the beliefs that we have about our I love it. Thank you. Okay, you’re up Marley.

Hi everyone, my name is Marley Braun. I have been a dietician for over a decade. I too have functional medicine training and I’m also a licensed esthetician. I actually came to this work. did, I always had gut troubles. I think stress and anxiety was probably one of my deep seated root causes, but I remember the first time that I ran a GI map on myself.

I did find quite a few parasites. I had been volunteering in a clinic in Nicaragua and I think I had been carrying parasites ever since, that volunteer experience that I did. And I really did the testing because my skin was suffering. So not only did I become a dietician and then a licensed esthetician, but then when I took it further to the gut work,

that was, and you know, cleaned up my gut. That was really when I saw my skin clear up. So I knew that there was something here. There was this phenomenal connection between gut health and skin health. And Hannah, you’ve been doing the skin program and I’m a part of that. And I’m really excited to be doing that work with clients now.

Hannah Aylward (05:26.658)

Yes, I love it. And what would you say is your favorite part of the work?

You know, I really like the session when we get to talk about the test. So we run functional medicine testing. And then when we open up the test and show it to the client, you know, typically these clients have been going to see doctors and other practitioners and no one can really offer them any solutions. And they’re just like, maybe it’s stress. Here’s a handout on stress. Here’s a handout on low FODMAP foods. And no one’s giving them a good answer.

like a smoking gun, and then we look at the test and we’re like, look at all of these things on here that we can work on to help you. And that I think brings people a lot of relief. Like, I am not crazy. There is something that we can work on. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Especially I think with women and just kind of the dismissal that tends to happen in like a traditional, you know, doctor’s office, a lot of conversation around it’s just stress, you know, just reduce your stress or it’s just like in your head or you just have to like learn to live with this kind of stuff. know, I think you kind of intuitively know if something’s up.

And when they’re telling you everything looks normal, but you kind of know deep down, like something’s up here. I’m struggling too much for everything to just quote unquote look normal. So I think it’s, it really is such a gift to be able to speak with these clients and, and provide some of that like relief and putting, I always say like putting the pieces of the puzzle together for them. Like this is why this is happening and this led to this, and this is causing this for the first.

Hannah Aylward (07:03.566)

potentially the first time in their lives after like many, years, you know, cause we’ll usually see people that have been struggling for quite some time. We’ll get some people that it’s been a year or two, but we’ll get a lot of people where it’s been five years, 10 years. I mean, since they were a kid, you know, so yeah, it’s, it’s a really cool work. both Eli and Marley work with our clients inside of my Healing Guts and Shaking Butts program. That’s my signature gut repairing program.

in addition to our one-on-one program. So we’ve got a six month one-on-one program and we run this functional stool testing in both cases, in both programs. And then these incredible women work with our clients to build out these protocols, assess and analyze these labs and really walk them through this gut repairing process. my gosh, I mean, how many people have we worked with at this point? A lot. A lot. Everyone’s laughing like hundreds and hundreds of clients.

Yeah, I think that’s really important too, you know, because a lot of people can kind of claim to like order the test, run the test, look at the test. But I think we all know that what you learn in training and then what you actually like, what you actually have to do and what applies in each case with each client is different. It’s not super cookie cutter and it kind of varies per client case. So there’s a lot of like, nuance and customization involved in this work, which

is where it really shines, I think. So yeah, I think we’ll go ahead and jump into some questions now. So one of the first big questions we were asked was a lot of stuff about SIBO. So Marley, I’ll let you take this one and just kind of break down for us, for the person that doesn’t know super well, what is SIBO? And then in addition to that, we’ll get into some of the common causes of SIBO and why someone’s SIBO may not be going away.

Right, so SIBO stands for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. It is diagnosed with a breath test. So you have to do a prep diet and then you drink a solution, either a lactulose solution or a glucose solution and blow into these tubes over the course of several hours. And then the gas is measured and that diagnoses you with SIBO. And there are different kinds of SIBO. There’s more hydrogen, there’s hydrogen and methane, and there’s also hydrogen sulfide.

Marley Braun (09:20.526)

But SIBO is rarely an isolated issue. Usually there are underlying imbalances or even health conditions that can alter motility and transit time. So when I’m thinking about SIBO, I’m always thinking about what’s the transit time, what’s the motility? And when I talk about motility, motility to me refers to

the ability of the body to self-clean or clear out like the debris and microscopic bits of food that have been left over when somebody eats a meal. So the bacteria in the gut is always sort of trying to get at that food and eat it. And we have these interesting little cleansing waves that push all of that down. It’s called the migrating motor complex. And those only run every 90 minutes when we’re not eating.

So there is this recommendation if you do have SIBO to go without a meal for three to five hours so that your body has that time so that your migrating motor complex or your self-cleaning mechanism can actually run at least maybe twice. There are some conditions that can kind of slow down that motility like diabetes or even hypothyroidism, altered anatomy from like surgeries like a GI surgery or adhesions.

that can play a role here and also medications. So proton pump inhibitors for one, that can actually predispose people to developing SIBO because it reduces the stomach acidity or the acid that’s being produced in the stomach. And that can have a lot of downstream effects with regard to digestion and motility. People can also have, if you get a concussion or a head injury,

that can predispose you. can actually injure that motility mechanism. Even a food poisoning event can do that as well. And then if there are infections like an H. pylori infection, so H. pylori will reduce that acidity of the stomach, just like a PPI, and predispose you to SIBO. Yeah, so those are some factors that maybe would predispose someone to SIBO and have a role.

Hannah Aylward (11:32.512)

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, what I usually say is like, SIBO is never really just SIBO, right? Because the bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine will, I mean, how do you guys feel about this? It’s kind of essentially contributing to inflammation of the gut lining, right? Like breakdown of the gut barrier if we’ve got so much overgrowth. So we’re going to also have this like intestinal permeability component.

And then it’s really like when we look at SIBO at the core of it is a motility issue, as Marley was saying. So it’s like, what is causing this disruption in the motility? Because what I always say is SIBO, know, have a lot of trillions of gut microbes. However, most of them are in the large intestine or the colon. So when we’re getting an overgrowth in the small intestine, we get super symptomatic.

really big bloating, we’ll look six months pregnant with belly bloat. Usually it’s upper abdomen, but you know, it can kind of like run the gamut. It can be full abdomen bloating. We can have diarrhea, constipation, you know, they say hydrogen is more linked to diarrhea or constipation. Like they link them up, but we kind of see it across the board. So, methane is supposed to cause more constipation, but we will also see methane dominant causing diarrhea. But essentially there’s just a lot of gut.

issues. could be burping, it could be really gassy, and usually those with SIBO will be really symptomatic to fibers. So foods rich in fibers will cause a lot of bloating. And it’s pretty painful. I have had SIBO and it’s not a fun experience. So what I really want everyone to understand is at the core, there’s something else that’s contributed to the SIBO that has to be addressed here. So yeah, Eli, do you have anything to add on that?

I think the only thing I would add is that this is really where we’re going to start that stress conversation because there’s a well-known and studied established connection between stress and motility. So stress can override that motility process. And then that when you’re not having the proper motility, just like Marley mentioned, you have the bacterial overgrowth, which starts. Stress also overrides stomach acid production and it uses the nutrients that cause downstream stomach acid production.

Eli Evangelista (13:40.588)

So there’s this whole, that’s really where stress starts. Like the stress conversation starts to me and being able to stop SIBO from occurring, which is quite common.

Yep, absolutely. We’ll see a lot of people with a history of an eating disorder develop SIBO. So I believe the statistic and I’d have to fact check it, but I believe it’s 97 % of those that have a history of an eating disorder develop functional gastrointestinal issues, essentially like IBS like symptoms, right? And I think a lot of that comes from the nutrient deficiencies and the chronic stress that is…

happening and without the body is essentially under when we’re restricting food so heavily. I tend to see that pattern a lot in clients, right? Like big history of restriction and under eating causes kind of that SIBO picture, that low stomach acid picture.

Yeah, can I talk real quick about the stress bucket? I don’t know if you all have heard listening have heard of the stress bucket analogy before, but when I think it’s helpful to illustrate what stress actually means. So if you imagine your body as this bucket and the stress goes into it, it can be mental, emotional, physical. So if you’re training for a marathon that goes into the same bucket has limiting the amount of food like focusing a lot of your attention on what you’re eating or

Yeah.

Eli Evangelista (15:00.066)

you’ve got unhealthy relationships in your life or really stressful job, whatever, it all goes into the same bucket. And so your body can adapt, but there’s a limit. have a top. So once things overflow out of that bucket, that’s when you start seeing symptoms. And it could be anything. It usually with the people we start working with, it usually starts, I find with low stomach acid, enzymes, blood sugar imbalance.

those kind of basics and then long term will lead to things like SIBO. So I think a helpful place to start with investigating stress is to look at what is actually in that bucket. If I’m getting these major symptoms, there’s probably a lot too much in my bucket. And so what can I start to take out? Can I reduce the load I have at work? Can I reduce my intensity of the workouts that I’m doing?

Can I reduce the load? It’s like the pressure that I have on myself overall. Yeah, I think that’s a good place to start.

Yeah, and replenishing, know, so we can’t expect the body to keep up with all of these demands if we’re never replenishing. So it’s like, if we’re not eating enough and we’re not replenishing our minerals and we’re not doing all of that, there’s only the body is incredibly resilient, but it will hit a point where it can’t take it anymore. You know, so if you’ve lived the last five

years of your life burning the candle at both ends and overworking and not sleeping enough. And maybe you had a baby and then you got a new job and you moved. mean, it’s like, which is, you know, all of us, all of us experienced versions of that. Right. So then eventually the body will kind of hit its breaking point and then we’ll get symptoms. So it’s, it’s a, it can be really like supportive, I think, to look back at your story.

Hannah Aylward (16:50.306)

So things start to make sense because my brain likes things to make sense. That’s how I operate. So when I look back and I can go, okay, well, I had this dresser and then this dresser and then this dresser. yeah. And then I had taken antibiotic cause I got this bad sinus infection. and that kind of tipped me over the edge, you know, so things can start to make sense. Yeah. Okay. So the question that we got like specifically is I did a round of rifaximin. I mean, we get questions from people saying I’ve done three rounds of rifaximin, right?

and the SIBO came back or my symptoms are still present. Marley, what do you have to say for that?

Marley Braun (18:52.274)

I mean, that is not uncommon. I think the effectiveness rate of Rifaximin is maybe like 44 to 60, somewhere in there, which is not great. And I think that begs the question, you know, why isn’t it so great? It’s probably because you’re only using the antibiotic and you’re not considering other elements like a prokinetic. So something that is going to support the gut motility and you’re not

investigating other causes of the symptoms. So you really have to drill down a little bit deeper and have a lot of other elements to healing rather than just the antibiotic. I mean, I’m not jammed up about using the antibiotic. I did have a client and he decided he had SIBO, but he also had an H. pylori infection and a parasite. So he did the antibiotic, the rifaximin,

And we did a protocol for the parasite and the H. pylori and one round was plenty for him of the antibiotic. He felt great afterwards. And I think it’s because, you know, we’re hitting all of the elements, the other things that are contributing to why he had the SIBO. I used a prokinetic in there as well. And then the other thing about, you know, maybe doing a round of refaximin and not feeling better is I’m assuming that they got a SIBO test, but, you know, refaximin is not going to touch

methane dominant species. So if there was any methane present, the refaxman isn’t going to do anything for that because the methane is not actually a bacteria. So you have to use something separate to hit the methane. that’s another thing.

I love that. That’s a great little clinical pearl. Yeah. mean, the other thing that comes along with SIBO, once again, it’s going back to like, we didn’t address the actual root cause of this, right? So some people will feel better for a couple of weeks and it’ll come right back. Or some people will take the Rifaximin and they’ll literally feel no different. So what we do is essentially we just like dig deeper. We’re looking at gut function and gut health.

at like a, on a deeper level, we’re looking at it holistically and seeing what all contributes to the formation of SIBO in the first place. And addressing that is really what’s going to break the cycle and kind of get you out of that. The other thing is like, you know, the fungal overgrowth that can commonly accompany something like SIBO, which is why once again, SIBO is never really like just SIBO, right? We can have a lot of like CFO or small intestinal fungal overgrowth that that rifaximin won’t touch either, you know? So there’s quite a few reasons why.

why we just, we, we can feel like it won’t work. And I think it’s just really important to note that because it’s so easy to think, my gosh, I’ve taken this right. Faxman three times. The SIBO is never going to go away. There’s something terribly wrong with me. There’s no hope. And that’s just not the case. There’s like endless other things that we can do to really get rid of that SIBO and to optimize your digestion. You may not even be dealing with SIBO anymore. It may be a parasite. It may be an H. pylori infection. It it may be CFO. So

That’s where really the functional stool testing, I think just, gives us so much great data to work with because I have had so many clients that have SIBO and it keeps coming back. And then we run the functional stool testing and we find the H. pylori infection. We find the parasitic infection and that’s what’s really preventing the SIBO from really going away. So it’s such an important conversation to have. Just know that like the journey is not over after Rife Aximin. There’s so many things that we can do. Okay, cool. Eli, do you have anything to add to that?

Eli Evangelista (21:01.132)

No, I think you wrapped that up beautifully.

Okay, great. So let’s jump into mold here for a second. So we get a lot of questions about mold, mold illness, mold detoxification. And someone asks, like, what are the most important pieces of a mold detox? So before we go straight into that, I think we could do an entire episode on mold or like maybe five, when you do like five episodes on mold. But just run me through some of the most common like symptoms that you see in those with mold illness.

Okay, mold illness, the symptoms can be completely different from person to person just because, and we see this on the mold test that we run, my favorite page of the test is it shows where in the body that mold hits. So there’s different, you you have different detox organs, you’ve got your cells, you’ve got your immune system and all that, your brain. And so different mold will target different detox organs.

to reduce their ability to get detoxed out. You can get brain symptoms, you can get cellular symptoms, so just like chronic fatigue. So the symptoms can be really varied from person to person, but the big red flag that I’ll see that tells me we probably have to look at mold is if someone has done this work before and they just keep getting sick again, or if their symptoms are like not lining up with the tests that we’ve already run at all. So.

That’s when I started to investigate mold.

Hannah Aylward (22:31.34)

Yeah, I would say like biggest symptoms, yes, the gut issues that just will not go away. How many times do you guys think we have done, we’ve seen the clients where the gut issues haven’t gone away and then it’s ended up being mold, like percentage wise.

Lately, it feels like maybe 65. Yeah. Lately, it’s very high.

Yeah. And a lot, a lot of the time. So I would say that, yeah, the gut issues that won’t go away, the SIBO that won’t go away. Mold can be a big cause of that too. The chronic skin stuff, especially like a rashy stuff, I feel like that can be a big. Yeah.

Reflux as well. Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of like when we use the tools for reflux and they’re not working at all, it’s been mold.

Yeah. Well, that’s cause it’s like the mold will cause that fungal overgrowth and the fungal overgrowth can give lots of that, those reflux symptoms. And then, yeah, you know, the other thing I like to note is that these mycotoxins are, they’re lipophilic. So they, they like fat and the brain is mostly fat. So we can see a lot of like neurological stuff, chronic fatigue, kind of also its impact on mitochondrial function, but changes in eyesight, trouble sleeping, like, and then also

Hannah Aylward (23:42.584)

Some sinus infections and nasal stuff, allergies, histamine symptoms too, can be a big thing there. So when someone’s looking to kind of like, if they’re listening to this and they’re like, wait, I have a lot of these symptoms. A, where should they start? Like what testing do we run? And then B, what are some of the most important pieces of like a mold detox protocol?

So we run a urine test and the urine test takes a look at what specific strains of mold is your body trying to detox. And so that’s helpful information so that I know if we need to provide support to protect your detox organs to know basically what we’re detoxing out with binders. But the main heavy hitter when it comes to mold is supporting bile because a big accumulation of mold goes into the bile. Cause like Hannah just said, mold loves fat and that’s where it is.

So a major portion is just getting the bile to move and a big result of stress is sticky, like sludgy bile that isn’t moving properly. So some things that you could do that are easy starts, choline from eggs helps to stimulate bile flow. So I always get people started on like two eggs a day if you could tolerate it. There’s also things like castor oil packs, which have a choleretic and cholagog effect to stimulate bile flow.

bitters have the same thing, same type of effect. So those are really easy ways to stimulate the production of bile in the liver cells, the hepato sites as they say, and then it also actually gets the bile flowing. So that’s a good place to start. And then you want to also make sure that you’re replenishing that bile. So we’re pushing out the bile that contained the mold. During that you want to make sure that you’re either reducing your mold exposure or eliminating your mold exposure.

So I know, you know, the best case scenario is that you remove the mold source, like the actual materials that contain the mold, and then replace it with new materials, or you move to a new place. Sometimes that’s not feasible. I’m working with someone right now that knows they’re gonna be in the environment for a couple months before they can get out. So what we do in that case is, man, it would keep the load as minimum as possible. So wiping it clean with vinegar,

Eli Evangelista (26:04.714)

making sure that if you see any sorts just keep in a weekly rotation basically of cleaning out all the areas where you know moisture accumulates wiping down moisture if you see it on the walls or windows keeping airflow going throughout the house. If you can getting a HEPA certified air filter that filters up to 0.1 microns will help to reduce mold in the air. I think that’s the basics.

Yeah. So that will help to at least minimize your exposure and definitely make sure you’re not touching it with your hands. Always like clean with gloves on because that will shoot the most directly to your bloodstream. And it’s better not to do that. If you are going to be cleaning the mold yourself as well, I recommend wearing like a N95 mask or something else to minimize your exposure to breathing it in.

So once you’ve got that, once you’ve decided if you’re going to be leaving, if you’re going to be staying and getting those tools in place, then you can start to replenish your bile and detox out if you decide to go that route. I’m not really going to go too far into that today, but it’s really important to know that you don’t want to start detoxing mold until you’re out of the environment because you can trigger pretty intense symptoms. So I’d never recommend to do that.

To replenish your bile though, you’re looking at a really high fat diet. So again, only do this if you can tolerate fat. If you’ve got a bile issue, if there’s already sticky bile, if you can’t digest fat, testing is really helpful to identify that and then provide additional support. But you’re looking at 30 to 35 % of your calories being from fat. You want it to be really rich in omega-3s, so things like avocado.

Refrigerate your nuts and seeds to keep the oils really healthy. Having your olive oil and dark bottles kept away from the sun away from the heat. So you prevent oxidation and yeah, fish that is wild caught grass fed meat, pastries, chicken and eggs, that kind of good stuff. Lots of fat in the diet is really helpful for mold detox.

Hannah Aylward (28:20.462)

Yeah. And then how, what about like fiber sources as well? Do you find those important?

Yes, so fiber is really helpful in this portion specifically the goal is five cups a day so it’s pretty high. You definitely don’t have to start there, of course, and I would actually recommend not starting there if you’re eating more like one cup a day right now. So can get some cramps and definitely make sure as you increase your fiber intake you want to increase your water intake to prevent those cramps.

So the goal with fiber though, with mold detox is to get in a variety. So I would say that the color variety is more important than the total cups in this case, because the different colors give you different nutrients for different pathways within the body. And it also has different antioxidants. So I would say you wanna get one food per day, whether it’s a vegetable or a fruit.

So fiber comes from vegetables, fruits or whole grains. So things like brown rice, brown pasta, potatoes, count, quinoa, that kind of stuff that gives you fiber. And then you want to pick one from the red category, one from the orange, yellow, green, and then one category is blue, purple, black. So if you eat one of those that counts for that category. And then one category is white, tan, brown. So if you eat one thing from that category, you’re good.

Yeah.

Eli Evangelista (29:46.584)

So I would say start with eating the rainbow in a day and then go up to that goal of five cups.

And when you’re saying five cups, you’re talking about five cups of fruits and veggies, basically, or veggies.

Mostly veggies, one cup of fruit really, yeah.

Yeah, that’s great. And the fiber is really helping to bind to the mycotoxins in the bile, right? So the concept is really like, the bile flowing, move the bile. Bile is, it kind of contains the toxins, the fiber helps to bind to these toxins. And then essentially we’re hoping to like poop them out. Yeah.

Yep.

Hannah Aylward (32:00.664)

So when we’re looking like widening the lens on mold, some of the biggest things to hit are that bile support, some good liver gallbladder support. Sometimes we need some mitochondrial support there too. Heavy on the antioxidants, especially when certain types of mold toxins like ochratoxin A, these things respond differently to different antioxidants, Or certain antioxidants like resveratrol can be really helpful there. These things we can totally get from the diet like Eli was mentioning.

Sometimes we can bring in supplementation there too. And then fiber and binders, right? And fiber kind of is a binder, but we can definitely amp up the binders as well. So that’s kind of what we’re going to be looking at when it comes to mold detox. And then of course, like the gut component, because it’s bit different than all of this because the mold can cause all of these gut imbalances, right? So one of the questions, and I’ll let you guys both answer this too with your opinion, but.

It’s like, what should I do first, the mold work or the gut work? So how would you answer that, Marley?

It sort of depends on the person. I I was sort of thinking about, you know, let’s get out of the mold first or figure out if that is possible. Like that I think would be the most important thing to me. And then depending on that answer, I mean, I do think support, like supporting the detoxification pathways is critical. The binders would be critical and the bioflow.

Yeah. And Eli, when you’re working with clients in regards to like what to do first, are you doing it? You know, my take is kind of like, we’re kind of doing it all at the same time, right?

Marley Braun (33:37.644)

It happens at the same time.

Yeah, exactly. So I get people started on the mold work, but really what I just described, we’re working on for at least a month. So the BioSlo, we’ll start looking at the stomach acid production, enzyme production. So we’re really getting started on the digestion immediately and then investigating where’s the mold coming from? Can we get out? Like, what’s the plan for that? And then, yeah, it kind of works out side by side. It all does come together.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Cause some people, you know, we get the question essentially, what should I do first? And it’s like, it’s kind of like, what should I work on first? My nervous system and anxiety or my gut health. And I’m like, well, it’s one in the same, you know, your gut can cause your anxiety and your anxiety can cause the gut issues. So, you know, a good plan, we should kind of be addressing all of this stuff at the same time. And there’s definitely like a kind of a method to our madness in regards to phasing, but we’re overlapping a lot of this stuff.

Okay, cool. So hopefully that brings some clarity to anyone that’s struggling with the mold piece. It’s like, it’s like, let’s see if it’s in your environment, let’s get out. We can test the body. That’s really valuable for us. We run a lot of mycotoxin panels with our clients. It’s a urine sample. It’s super easy to do. And then from there we build out these protocols and walk you through everything that we kind of discussed. And timeline wise, we’re looking at what I would say like a good six months, if not a little longer for most people, right?

Yeah, I’d say six months minimum just because of the whole the step phase, but it’s not a ton of work during the actual protocol. It’s just it takes your time to you’re completely fleshing out your violin, replacing it, and that just takes time.

Hannah Aylward (35:18.616)

Yeah. So we need a good, a good few months of work. Okay, great. So let’s go into another question that we got was about our gut symptoms being worse at different phases of our cycle. So these kind of having different gut flares during like the menstrual phase versus the luteal phase versus the ovulation phase. So Marley, can you break down for me why someone may be experiencing kind of flares and symptoms at different phases of the cycle?

Yeah, absolutely. So the ovulatory phase is that time when you can potentially get pregnant, right? And so around this time, estrogen levels are at their peak. So this can actually increase gut motility and it can lead to symptoms like diarrhea, maybe some abdominal cramping and, you know, estrogen and histamine are closely aligned and linked. So when there’s more estrogen out,

playing around, there can be more histamine release. So you could get some of those symptoms associated with histamine and bloating is definitely like the number one histamine response. But then there are others like itchy skin or sneezing. So histamine and estrogen kind of go together and they kind of play around in the ovulatory phase. And then there’s that luteal phase, which is sort of that premenstrual phase. At this time, progesterone levels rise.

And that can actually slow down gut motility and the migrating motor complex that I talked about. So this can lead to stagnation of intestinal contents, maybe some more bacterial overgrowth, and this can increase gas and bloating and constipation. A lot of my clients complain that they feel a little bit more constipated right before their period, and this is why this is happening, because of that progesterone rise. And then in the menstrual phase, this is the bleed phase.

estrogen and progesterone levels drop off. And then there’s this increase in prostaglandin production and prostaglandins stimulate the uterine contractions and that can also affect the GI tract. So that can lead to bloating, diarrhea and abdominal pain.

Hannah Aylward (37:32.396)

Yeah, that’s like the period poops. When men get the period poops, it’s like an increase in prostaglandins. Which is, yeah, so it’s not fun. you know, another question for this, well, first off, I think it’s really important to know your cycle because you can kind of like clue in on what could be happening in your body based on when your symptoms are flaring, based on where you’re at in your cycle. So, you know, when we’re working with people, I like to ask them,

Right.

Hannah Aylward (38:00.462)

do you notice symptoms flare around opulation? If they do, that can give us some insight. Hey, we might be looking at a little estrogen dominance. There might be some histamine overload here. We can work with you on that. That kind of like clues us in a bit. So tracking your cycle and knowing your cycle is an incredibly powerful tool that you can have in your own toolkit. And it’s like easy to do once you kind of learn it. For anyone that doesn’t know, this is how I remembered it. So follicular phase is F is for first.

This is how I always remember things in school. Follicular stands for first. That’s like the first phase, right? So menstrual, that’s the bleed that really kicks it off. And then you’ve got follicular. That’s the first phase. Obulation is happening midway through the cycle. That’s when you can get pregnant, right? It’s really like a much shorter little phase. And then you’ve got your luteal phase and that’s last. So L for last in luteal. That’s how I remember it. And cause I was always mixing it up for like years.

but it’s really helpful to know this stuff and then understand how your hormones can impact your digestion here. So my question for you is like, at what point is this normal? Like a little change up is normal versus like, we can do some things to make this better. There’s a bigger issue here.

Yeah, and there’s absolutely a connection between the gut microbiome and hormone production, metabolism, receptor binding. So once we go in and we start shifting and changing the gut microbiome, oftentimes there will be shifts in the cycle, in the menstrual cycle, like they’ll get longer or they’ll get shorter. And, you know, my clients are always asking me like, is this normal? Is this normal? And I’m like, totally normal. We’re shifting things around. It should level out.

And basically our aim is to shift and change that gut microbiome and make it more favorable. And then in doing so, it really helps with some of that symptomology that you’re getting, those intense histamine responses or those cramps or the diarrhea. Some change is normal. We are cyclical beings, but yeah, if you have to take medication or if you have to call in sick from work, we need to work on that. Yeah.

Hannah Aylward (40:10.486)

Yeah, I think that’s a great call. I think the goal is not really never any bloating at all, right? And the goal is not really never… To have some bowel, looser bowels, I think, right before you menstruate is I would consider relatively normal, right? It’s kind of just like, yeah, well, I’m in a lot of pain, I’m running to the bathroom, I can’t control it, I’m calling out of work. That’s when it’s like, there’s a deeper issue that we can address here.

I think that’s really important for people to understand. Yeah. Cause you are, mean, especially as women, like our hormones are fluctuating all the time and, and they’re, they experience a little bit of some of this is kind of more considered normal. A lot of our clients are like, you know, symptoms are much bigger. Yep. Okay. Awesome. So you mentioned histamine. So I want to talk about histamine for a little bit because we see a lot of clients with like this histamine overload picture. So Eli, if you want to take this one in regards to what is histamine overload kind of like look like in the body.

Okay, I’m going to talk about histamine a bunch and then you can tell me how you feel about this. So histamine overload symptom wise can look like a lot of different things. So for some people it’s a lot of food intolerances that can’t be really tracked to a specific item. For some people it can feel like allergy related symptoms, sneezing, coffee, runny nose type deal.

So a lot of the time when it comes to histamine overload type symptoms, I noticed that it’s not really about the food that’s going into the body. It’s more about the environment that the food is going into. So that’s when the testing comes into play, because we can do some more investigation as to what’s actually going on. And this is my favorite part about testing actually, because I think that food restrictions can go pretty deep and can…

be unhelpful, not only for digestion, because like we kind of alluded to earlier, nutrients are so important for the body. It’s as if nutrients are really the currency and nutrients come from food. Nutrients are the currency that you give to your organs to do their job. So if you’re not eating, you’re essentially not paying them to do anything and they’re not doing anything. So it’s really important to eat a variety. So I really advocate for not restricting food as much as possible.

Eli Evangelista (42:31.382)

It can be helpful temporarily while you are on the journey of figuring out what the root cause is, but it’s rarely the root cause. So that being said, I find that the testing is helpful because we can look at, it dysbiosis? Is it mole? Do we just need some stomach acid and enzyme support? So that could be helpful. One other thing I really like to say about the histamine sensitivities is I prefer not to use things like DAO.

or histamine digest supplements. Just because they’re going, it’s basically just, you produce DAO, diamino oxidase, which helps to break down histamines. But, so taking a supplement provides more DAO to your body. You need B vitamins to be able to actually utilize the DAO. And so there can be this kind of intricate balance between a little bit more deficiency or you just don’t have the B vitamins already in your body.

to able to use the DAO. So I prefer things like quercetin, which can be helpful because of the anti-inflammatory. also provides, it modulates histamine release, it modulates mast cells, it stabilizes mast cells, which then release the histamines. So that’s just one tip of what I prefer to go down. If you do need some support while you’re investigating what actually is at the root of your histamine symptoms.

Yeah, I love that. The DAO enzyme, it’s also just expensive, you know? mean, it’s so expensive for people. And I think it can be, like, it can be helpful, but it’s not really addressing the root cause, which, you know, as you mentioned, there’s a time and place to kind of bring in these interventions, like the more restrictive diets and stuff temporarily, while we’re digging deeper. And that’s the key, while we’re digging deeper to address the underlying root causes.

we will bring some clients on a lower histamine diet for a period of time just to like minimize the symptoms and better their quality of life while we’re addressing all the other stuff. And what I see a lot in our clients is like a lot of these bacteria, know, overgrown bacteria that are contributing to the histamine overload picture. So I kind of explain it as like a bucket, just like the stress bucket, right? Like we’re getting exposure to histamine. It’s in the food that we eat. It’s in the environment. Our immune system is producing histamine.

Hannah Aylward (44:50.03)

that’s happening for everyone. The question is like, why can’t we break it down quickly enough? And that kind of comes back to, we’re either overproducing it or we’re lacking what we need to actually break it down. So usually there’s a nice bit of both for people. So we can work on optimizing both of those things and, really minimizing those symptoms. What would you say, Eli, is that you see kind of causing this, like what is at the root of some of these histamine overload symptoms for a lot of people?

Depends what we find on the testing. So for the histamine issues with dysbiosis, and actually I lied, and now that I’m thinking about it, I think the root causes, again, back to stress. So with the mold, because technically a healthy body that has nutrients to nourish the organs and the immune system, you should be able to regulate and keep the amounts of mold and dysbiosis in the body at bay. A healthy body is extremely resilient.

How would we have made a billions of years here without it? You know, we’re running right now and sometimes people are running on like no food at all. So body is very resilient. So we have to ask why is something that one person can handle no problem. Like, you know, eating or being in a multi building and another person can’t. So usually it does take me back to stress and the nervous system.

So again, when that stress bucket is overflowing, you don’t have the materials available to your body to combat things and adapt to stressors properly. So then stomach acid comes down, enzymes come down, motility comes down, and then you end up with this biosis. All of that can also lead to mold taking up residency in the body. So I really think that figuring out where you’re overextending and

scaling it back, taking things out of that stress bucket is what’s necessary to get out of this. And specifically talking about mold, if that is your step before the root cause, I find there’s some sort of spiritual journey going on with the people that I work with where they’re learning feelings of safety, especially after working with your mold. Being able to root into like, am safe, I am…

Eli Evangelista (47:07.074)

taking care of myself right now and there is no end destination of perfect health by showing up for yourself in the moment you are changing your health story.

I love that. I could really go into that because I dealt with mold and my nervous system was an absolute wreck, like a true wreck. And you guys saw it. I’m sure you thought, yeah, I mean, it’ll freak you out. It’ll, I always say like, it gave me a little PTSD, you know, and I was actually dealing a lot with feelings of safety. mean, I, after going through the mold, I went to therapy and that’s when I started seeing a therapist. And that’s when I started literally addressing

I don’t feel safe in my body. How can I feel safe in my body? And that was really helpful. Doing a lot of EMDR and nervous system work was really helpful because it’ll just like, really puts such a burden on your nervous system. in a way it did kind of like usher me into that work that I needed to do anyway. So it is interesting to just witness like the patterns in life things that clients are going through too.

If this is really speaking to anyone, I think that a really good resource would be the Body Keeps the Score, just to understand how these mental elements can, and physical, can build up into symptoms in case it’s really speaking to you.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah. And episode one, I spoke all to, you know, how trauma can essentially cause gut and hormone issues over, over time, right? It’s kind of just like a matter of time. And that’s not to feel, to like blame you or feel any guilt or anything like that. I just, once again, my brain likes to make sense of things. So when I can go, okay. I had this and this and this, and then it kind of contributed to these symptoms that feels reassuring to me. Cause it feels like empowering to me. Like I can now make a difference here.

Hannah Aylward (48:50.668)

So check out that episode too, if that’s resonating with you, like the emotional work kind of contributing to some of these symptoms. Yeah, I think that’s beautiful. I think it’s so easy to talk about the supplements and all that kind of stuff and the toxins and, but, the other, the mental component and the nervous system component of this work is equally as important. And we’ll see it, right? mean, Marley, would you say that in clients who can regulate their nervous system, they get better quicker?

Oh yeah, for sure. Definitely. Yeah, it really makes the path so much easier. Yeah. Yeah. If you’re taking care of that mental space, I think it makes the supplements, the lifestyle recommendations, the diet recommendations resonate and work so much better. Yeah.

Yeah. And we’ll see it in clients, you know, and there’s once again, no blame. Like a lot of the clients that we work with have seen a lot of other people and they’re, they’ve been struggling for a long time. So it’s hard to trust your body in that state and it’s hard to trust a practitioner in that state. So, you know, but we can only work to the best of our abilities. Like our work can only work if you allow it in too. Right. So sometimes when people are questioning supplements or this or that, or there, can feel the distrust in them.

it’ll be a little harder for like the tools to really do their job. So it’s, it’s a nice kind of invitation to surrender and accept the support as well. Like there’s so much healing and signing up to work with someone and trusting them, feeling good about it, you know, always make sure you feel good with the person that you’re working with. That’s important. And then kind of surrendering and saying like, I’m gonna, I’m gonna trust this. I’m going to trust this process and I’m going to trust what you’re telling me and always listening to your intuition, of course, but

letting someone in, right? So when clients question every move or question every symptom or question every supplement or every diet change or resist that, it’s going to be harder for them to get progress for sure. Yeah. Did you have something to say, Eli?

Eli Evangelista (50:43.092)

No, I was just cheering you on because yeah, the intuition is so important. And another favorite part about this work for me is that is seeing when people get cleared, like when they clear the gut issues, it brings such a strength to the intuition that can come forward because you’re not riddled by pain and discomfort all the time. So that’s really a beautiful way of saying it. Yeah, I agree.

I love that. And I say like that, that’s at like the core of this work. Like I love, you know, the getting rid of the gut issues, but at the, real purpose of this is to like put women in back in their bodies and like in their power and in their confidence, you know, cause that’s when I think the world shifts, which I know sounds kind of intense, but that’s my real goal.

You know, we work with a lot of women in this program and I think hypervigilance is definitely a characteristic that I see a lot. And I think, you know, they’re analyzing every single food that they’re eating, every symptom that they have. And yeah, I think if that is resonating with you, it’s definitely something that we need to address. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And that was me. mean, that was my body knows hypervigilance very well. My body knows stress very well. It’s all I know. So it’s like moving out of that is, really where the work is. You know, that was where the growth was for me. The growth for me wasn’t in tightening things up. The growth for me was actually in trusting myself and, and allowing and loosening a little bit. And that’s a lifelong journey. But, you know, I think there’s so much to be done there. And I mean, when we look at the research, it’s like,

Type A perfectionist women, these women are higher risk for IBS. I mean, it’s like directly correlated, right? So that tight gripping, you I was the one who I took all my own snacks everywhere. I packed all my own supplements everywhere. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t even eat at the whole foods hot bar because of the oils or whatever, which like I get, you know, they should use better oils, but it’s like here and there, you’re going to be fine. You know what I mean? But I was so tightly wound and it definitely wasn’t doing me any good. I’ll

Hannah Aylward (52:48.116)

What I say now is, I mean, I eat more French fries now than I did than I ever did before. And my gut issue, I don’t have gut issues anymore. but I, but I worked on the deeper stuff. I worked on the gut environment and I just trust my body like 100 times more than I did when I was really struggling. If you are already scared of the food that you’re going to eat before you eat it, you’re not going to respond well to it, you know? And there’s like a, there’s a physiological like explanation for that, but

just know that. the body trust is really such a big part of this. so yeah, to kind of wrap this up. So we aren’t going for too long. The last question that I want to ask you both, and I’ll let you kind of both riff on it is if someone is just starting their gut healing journey, where would you recommend that they start? And Eli, you can start with this.

Okay, to start with the foundations, I would definitely recommend starting by investigating stomach acid, which has a direct connection to enzymes. We take a deeper look at enzyme production on the GI map, but you can do a test at home. So I would recommend to test the stomach acid. You can do this like tomorrow, you would get a glass of water, maybe half a cup and then put one fourth teaspoon of baking soda in it.

drink it first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Set a timer for five minutes. See if you burp within those first five minutes. And if you do not burp, I would say do this three days in a row just to get a real reading on it. But if you don’t burp a majority of the time during those tests, you would benefit from stomach acid support. I wouldn’t start with anything serious. I would just start with some gentle support like bitters.

15 minutes before meals and then see if you benefit from stuff like enzymes because stomach acid helps to encourage enzymes from your pancreas to help break down carbs, protein and fat, a little bit of fat in your food. So that’s a good place to start. Detox, also helpful. Castor oil packs are a really easy place to start as far as liver detox. That helps a lot of people with bioflow as well. If you do have sludgy bile.

Eli Evangelista (55:01.154)

But blood sugar is definitely like the easiest place that you could start and get serious benefits as far as like energy levels go. Eating within the first two hours of waking, ideally one, but at least two hours of waking. And then eating every three to five hours after that. That way you don’t get low blood sugar, you don’t get high blood sugar. Again, a lot of the times because the people we work with have so much symptoms going on, it’s hard.

hunger fullness cues get lost. So if that’s you, would say start with eating something at those intervals. High protein would be prioritized and then increase the amount as your appetite comes back.

Yeah, I love that. Have we ever seen a client come in eating enough protein?

I had a bodybuilder once actually, so yes, they were. But rarely.

One client out of 600 clients. Yeah. So it’s usually a good place to start. And it’s really like having a moment right now. Like protein’s very trendy, but it’s for good reason. know, don’t forget the fiber. Don’t forget the fat, the healthy fats. Don’t forget the good carbs. But you know, most women I’d say that we see are eating about 50, 60 grams of protein coming in and we’re looking to get them at about a hundred at least, you know, for most people. Of course there’s nuance there, but

Hannah Aylward (56:22.636)

Yeah, definitely a good place to start. agree with all of that. And Marley, where would you start someone if they’re new to that?

Yeah, I think one of the most impactful things that I see is the protein. Getting at least 25 to 30 grams of protein in the morning, I think has a tremendous, tremendous effect on the blood sugar throughout the rest of the day and energy levels. I think most of my clients, when they start doing that, they’re like, wow, I feel so much better. Yeah.

Good. And then of course, cleaning up the diet, know, fiber rich fruits and vegetables, having healthy fats like avocados and nuts and seeds and olive oil, trying to get some of those, the more junky processed foods, emulsifiers, things like that, that are not good for the gut out of the diet, minimize those as much as possible. Yeah. And then I think it all comes back to looking, checking under the hood and doing the stool test. I think that’s where the magic lies.

You know, we really want to see what exactly is going on.

Yeah, no, no question. mean, for me personally, I think for all of us, right. The stool test was a game, just a total game changer. Like had done a lot of the other stuff had the diet kind of like locked in was we’re needing a lot of processed foods, still dealing with a lot of symptoms. The stool tests really changed the game. And that’s why I wanted to bring it into my work because I was, I was doing all the things, you know, the elimination diets and the, and the balancing of blood sugar and the L glutamine and the probiotics. mean, I did all of that and I still

Hannah Aylward (57:51.084)

I was still feeling off. So the stool testing can be such an incredible tool there. And then of course, working with someone that knows what they’re doing when it comes to analyzing the test and building out the protocols. So that’s where the real magic happens, not in just purchasing the test. So yeah, if anyone, you know, has listened to this and is interested in working with us, we’d love to help you both Eli and Marley. As I mentioned, they work with clients in the one-on-one programs. They work with clients inside of my healing guts and chicken butts program.

We do the stool testing, we do the symptom analysis and we build out the protocols inside both of these programs. And if you’re interested, there is a link to book a strategy call with me in the show notes below. It’s great to book these calls because I can chat with you. We can talk about your history, your symptoms, make sure you’re a good fit to work with us. I’ll tell you if you are or if you’re not. And then we can get you into the right program for you. So yeah, it’s, really good work. Any last kind of comments that you guys would leave everyone with?

there’s no okay, I don’t know how do I do this without preaching. I feel so like spiritually connected with this work, honestly, that I have a hard time not preaching at times. But there really is no like end destination when it comes to health. Again, you just showing up for yourself is the biggest step that you could possibly take. And then I just want to point out one more thing I love about the work that we get to do here is

you will understand how your body adapts to stress by going through this process and then you can get tools by the end that you can use again. If your body, let’s say if the stress bucket overloads and then you need some stomach acid support, you’ll know how your body adapts to stress and you’ll know how to support it so that it doesn’t go all the way to needing a gut test again or something like that.

Yeah, I love that. Anything that you want to leave people with, Marley? I think…

Marley Braun (59:40.748)

Gut work is so important because it’s really the seat of all health, I feel like. I mean, there’s connections to the skin, there’s connections to metabolic health, there’s connections to hormones. So I think addressing gut health is really addressing full body health.

Yeah, I love it. It’s like, it’s like doing this gut work is a root cause approach to your overall health. Yeah. I mean, I obviously couldn’t feel more passionately about it. That’s why I do this. So yeah, I mean, anyone that’s looking to kind of get to the bottom of their chronic digestive issues, their chronic skin conditions, or really just get to know their bodies more and dig a little deeper, having a lot of symptoms that quote unquote don’t make sense. Gotten a lot of labs back that look normal, but you don’t feel normal. You feel like crap.

We were in it with you. We’re here to help you through this and investigate and dig deeper. So thank you guys for being here with me today and answering everyone’s questions. And we’ll see you in the next episode next week. Bye you guys.

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Nutrient Dense Podcast. If you found this episode valuable, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and come back next week for a new episode. See you then!