Less Stressed Life: Helping You Heal Yourself

#276 Not all fiber is created equally with Megan Barnett, MS, CNS

December 23, 2022 Christa Biegler
Less Stressed Life: Helping You Heal Yourself
#276 Not all fiber is created equally with Megan Barnett, MS, CNS
Show Notes Transcript

This week on The Less Stress Life Podcast, I am joined by Megan Barnett. I know we think we already know every we need to know about fiber but I PROMISE Megan Barnett makes it even more interesting. 

Honestly, every health professional should listen to this if they’ve never had a nuanced lesson on different fibers and their use. And every human that poops should listen if they want to advocate best for themselves. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

  • Fiber’s use in improving estrogen detox AKA bad period symptoms
  • The magic of short-chained fatty acids
  • Different types of fibers and their uses

GUEST SHARED HELPFUL TIPS ON:

  • What fiber works best for loose bowels
  •  Which fiber is best if you are constipated

ABOUT GUEST:
 Megan Barnett is the developer and cofounder of Florasophy organic soluble fiber blends and co-owner of Biolounge, a functional medicine and longevity clinic in Portland, Oregon. She holds a BS in Dietetics and an MS in Functional Medicine and Human Nutrition and is Board Certified as a Clinical Nutrition Specialist. Megan works as a Functional Medicine Nutritionist with patients aiming to identify and correct underlying imbalances and infections and as an educator to providers interested in integrative and precision medicine. Megan has a special interest in the relationship between soluble fiber and health optimization which propelled her to develop Florasophy.

WHERE TO FIND       :

Website : https://thinkflorasophy.com/

On IG:  https://www.instagram.com/thinkflorasophy/

WHERE TO FIND CHRISTA:

https://www.christabiegler.com/

On IG: instagram.com/anti.inflammatory.nutritionist/

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[00:00:00] Megan: Diversity is pretty important because different fibers do different things, different soluble fibers, even in that family feed, different microbes. In our microbiome, 

[00:00:10] Christa: stress is the inflammation that robs us of life, energy, and happiness. Our typical solutions for gut health and hormone balance. Have let a lot of us down we're overmedicated and underserved at the less trust life.

[00:00:25] Christa: We are a community of health savvy women exploring solutions outside of our traditional Western medicine toolbox and training to raise the bar and change our stories. Each week, our hope is that you leave our sessions inspired to learn, grow, and share these stories to raise the bar in your life and home.

[00:00:52] Christa: Today on the Less Stress Life I have Megan Barnett, who is the developer and co-founder of Fluoroscopy, which is an organic [00:01:00] soluble fiber blend and Kono. She's also co-owner of Biolo, a Functional Medicine and Longevity Clinic in Portland, Oregon. She has her BS in dietetics and msn, functional Medicine and human nutrition as board certified.

[00:01:12] Christa: As a clinical nutrition specialist. She works as a functional medicine nutritionist with patients aiming to identify and correct underlying imbalances and infections. And as an educator to providers interested in integrative and precision medicine, she has a special interest in the relationship between soluble fiber and health optimization, which propelled her to develop her own type of soluble fiber.

[00:01:36] Christa: Philosophy. So we're gonna talk all about fiber today cuz she loves talking about fiber. So welcome Megan. Thank you for having me. Yeah, so well maybe we should start, I mean everyone here is an intelligent listener, but I think as I was just tripping over the words fiber a couple of times, I thought, you know, maybe we should dispel or talk about kind of how we look at fiber.

[00:01:57] Christa: From more of a conventional standpoint and then how it gets pushed [00:02:00] or, or brought up and that there's different kinds and, and all of that. So maybe like, let's lay the foundation of 1 0 1 of what is fiber and what's been our traditional shtick around fiber? Yeah. And then how could we be 

[00:02:10] Megan: doing it better?

[00:02:11] Megan: Sure. You know, growing up I had a, I actually personally had a lot of doctors that said, you just need to eat more fiber. I'd always had gut issues and I remember thinking like, man, I cannot fit another vegetable into my diet. I feel like that's all I eat. And. Even through all of my education, I never really learned the difference between soluble and insoluble fiber, which was kind of surprising.

[00:02:33] Megan: It not only didn't come up in undergrad and dietetics, it didn't come up in a graduate program aimed specifically at the gut. So a couple of years ago, I came to understand this difference between insoluble and soluble fiber, and the best way that I can explain it. Insoluble fiber we think of when we think of all of our vegetables and fruits and the structure, they have almost the crunch.

[00:02:54] Megan: You know, you, you chew down on something, get that crunch. It's, that's the insoluble fiber that gives it structure. [00:03:00] Soluble fiber. On the other hand, you're gonna see more often in things like beans and lentils, chia, flax, et cetera. That. You know, think about chia pudding, for instance, that has become now very popular, right?

[00:03:13] Megan: You get chia seeds wet, they become gelatinous. It's a little bit gross. They're a little mucusy in your mouth. That's soluble fiber. We see that in beans. You know, if you let chick piece it around for a long time in water, and those two fibers behave very differently in the body. Insoluble fiber is often recommended to us, you know, eat more vegetables when we have digestive issues.

[00:03:33] Megan: But in reality, what it does is it irritates the lining of the intestinal. When I say irritate, which sounds bad, but that's a good thing. It increases peristalsis so it can help bulk your stool and then move things along. Soluble fiber does many more things that in, you know, not that I am biased or anything, but I do feel like soluble fiber does all these magical things in the digestive tract that it doesn't get credit for.

[00:03:56] Megan: So, you know, I kind of visualize soluble fiber as it moves down the digestive [00:04:00] tract, and I think that's helpful in understanding what it's doing and why it's important. So if you consume, let's just say a plateful of. The first stop that's important is your actual stomach, organ, and when it moves into the stomach organ, it expands, that fiber expands.

[00:04:15] Megan: It helps you feel fuller longer, and then it actually slows the absorption of carbohydrates from our. Meal, whatever else we're eating, or the carbohydrates from those beans so it can stabilize your blood sugar. As we move down further into the digestive tract, let's move into the small intestine. This is where there's some crazy things that happen that I feel like women, this is the PSA to women because it's in this space.

[00:04:39] Megan: where the gallbladder is now going to secrete vial soluble fiber binds to bile. It attaches to it like two little lego blocks. Vial is made of cholesterol, so one of the things soluble fiber does is bind to this vial that's made of cholesterol and it prevents it from being reabsorbed into your bloodstream.

[00:04:57] Megan: Therefore lowering your overall cholesterol levels, [00:05:00] which is cool, carries that vial into your colon and out into your. But vial is actually a vehicle for getting rid of other things. Vial can be containing toxins. It can also be containing estrogen. So lots of the women that I work with have dealt with hormone issues their entire life, and when we increase their soluble fiber significantly, what it does is drop their overall estrogen levels and help to balance out their hormones.

[00:05:24] Megan: Because if you're consistently consuming that soluble fiber, it's consistently binding the bial that's holding estro. And again, moving it into the colon and out into the toilet. From that point, as it moves into the large intestine, into the colon, libo fiber becomes a food source for your microbiome.

[00:05:39] Megan: Your healthy microbes increasing short tank fatty acid, which feed the colon cells and can help reconstitute the integrity of the colon wall. And it gives you this beautiful bowel movement. So we all love good poop and soluble fiber helps to do that by adjusting the water balance. So if you have loose stool it.

[00:05:57] Megan: Firm up your stool by absorbing excess [00:06:00] water. And if you have constipation or hard stool, it's gonna bring water into your bowels. And so that helps loosen things up. So that's the whole travel plan of the soluble fiber from the beginning to the end. But that's why I say it to so many cool things that we just don't talk enough about.

[00:06:16] Megan: Well, 

[00:06:16] Christa: it does. And to go back to your story, which thank you so much for sharing your story first. That was better anyway, you know, you always had gut issues and you were told, Hey, I couldn't add another vegetable to my diet, which was insoluble fiber. Cuz you talked about the crunch, which is I always like the monic devices.

[00:06:34] Christa: Yeah. And then you talked about. Soluble fibers being chia, flax, beans, et cetera. So I wanna talk about that piece of those and potential digestive issues that can pop up sometimes, because that's the tricky part. It's like sometimes you don't tolerate things beautifully initially. Yes, exactly. And that's where it gets really exciting.

[00:06:50] Christa: It's like, yep, that didn't work. , you know, so. So I wanna talk about what's tolerated well and not tolerated well. But before we even go there, let's talk about what's usually [00:07:00] recommended. So like, let's say it's just run of the mill, and I'm sure there's listeners that have had this experience or someone they know, maybe it's their mom or their cousin, or someone that's had this where they're just recommended to take Metamucil.

[00:07:12] Christa: And so talk about the difference between Metamucil, we didn't cover Metamucil and what type of fiber it is. So let's talk about that one and let's dive into positive negatives around soluble fiber . 

[00:07:22] Megan: So a lot of the drugstore brands are cilium husk. Some of them are wheat dextrin, some of them are corn fiber.

[00:07:30] Megan: Oftentimes they're one fiber. They also are often irritants. Like I said, back to the insoluble fiber. You can induce bowel movements just by making the intestinal walls irritated because it increases peristalsis. Mm-hmm. . But the other thing about soluble fiber, much. Anything we eat, diversity is pretty important because different fibers do different things, different soluble fibers, even in that family feed, different microbes in our microbiome.

[00:07:58] Megan: So my business partner always likes to [00:08:00] say, I mean, you need to have five cups of vegetables a day, but you don't want them all to be broccoli. , right? There's a reason for that. And that's the same thing with soluble fiber. And I would say the other issue I see a lot with drugstore brands in, in my patient base is that they have additives.

[00:08:15] Megan: They have other things that are actually fighting against them getting well. And we really want anything we're putting into our bodies to be doing no harm and to be clean. And to that end, something that is not filled with more toxins, more additives, more irritants, tensile, the better. 

[00:08:34] Christa: So let's talk about, I think let's start with the context of soluble fiber, cuz we've mm-hmm.

[00:08:38] Christa: I think headed to down that route on like, that's a more useful one, but we have food sources of soluble fibers, chia, flax, beans, et cetera. Let's talk about some of the digestive issues that can come up with soluble fiber and then mitigating that there's dosing, there's what's else is going on on that, et 

[00:08:56] Megan: cetera.

[00:08:56] Megan: Well, you know, I think both you and I know because of the work we do, [00:09:00] it's really challenging for a lot of people to tolerate specific foods. And in this day and age, often we find they don't tolerate beans or lentils. We're, we're removing whole, you know, food groups at times in order to reduce sensitivities or to get better results in one way or another, at least temporarily.

[00:09:15] Megan: So, Whether a person can't tolerate the foods that have these soluble fibers, or they just can't tolerate the soluble fiber. Mm-hmm. , that's often because of dysbiosis, because their microbiome cannot manage the breakdown of those fibers. Those soluble fibers are. In essence, the food, they're great for your microbiome, but they're extremely irritating to the microbiome if you don't have the healthy microbiome that allows for that breakdown.

[00:09:43] Megan: So dosing is really important. Starting extremely slowly is really important. The book that was written a couple years ago, fiber fueled that, that gastroenterologist spoke to that quite a bit. It's like he would start people on a teaspoon. Beans a day or something, just really small, and I agree [00:10:00] with that.

[00:10:00] Megan: In my clinical practice, I see some people need to start with an eighth of a teaspoon of soluble fiber a day, and we slowly increase, I will say certain soluble fibers such as inulin, chicory root, corn, fiber, those are very irritating to most people. They cause a lot of bloating. And oftentimes you don't get over that you, you can't slow slowly enough dose that to get over it because of the way that they're metabolized in the amount of gas that is excreted when our microbiome metabolizes them.

[00:10:27] Megan: But many soluble fibers, let's just say chia, don't tend to cause that level of irritation or bloating still. It's a start slow and slowly increase, but most of my clients can get up to over tablespoon a day of taking soluble fiber as a supplement within a month, as long as they're eating a, a healthy diet alongside it.

[00:10:47] Megan: Yeah, it's a 

[00:10:48] tricky 

[00:10:48] Christa: push pull situation. Like, you know, one of the reasons someone can have you brought up that this is amazing for your clients that have estrogen, accessor, and they're not clearing. Because the binders allow, you [00:11:00] know, the estrogen to kind of be bound up, essentially like in very, very short version.

[00:11:04] Christa: But it's a little tricky cuz sometimes estrogen can also be a gut liver, you know, gut issue in general. And so there's just a little push pill. And then I think if we're using the word, people are familiar with the term fiber as an umbrella term, but then there's lots of things underneath of it. It's just like, Maybe people are becoming more aware of gut health, but there's many shades of what that looks like.

[00:11:23] Christa: So I wanna start with, we just talked about the challenges that can happen if we've got gut dysbiosis and tolerating soluble fiber, even though it's useful, that's a whole problem. It's like a roadblock. Mm-hmm. . However, not everyone is going to address the, their dysbiosis, maybe in like a super comprehensive way, or they're gonna look for other versions.

[00:11:40] Christa: So there are maybe, maybe not some fibers that are better tolerated with dysbiosis or the amount. Mm-hmm. . So I think. , you know, when this makes sense to come in and how people are gonna tolerate it. So I think that the question should be, can you consume fibers with dysbiosis successfully? Perhaps got imbalances.

[00:11:58] Christa: And maybe we could co qualify that a little bit [00:12:00] more if you've got imbalances. Mm-hmm. might feed selectively on certain things. I don't know. I'll let you answer 

[00:12:04] Megan: that . Yeah. Yeah. You know, I had a, a large portion of my patient population that had SIBO or had symptoms of sibo. I like to say. That's a whole nother world, but they had upper gastric bloating, let's say.

[00:12:18] Megan: Yes. Mm-hmm. and I have found that with the right soluble fiber, that does not exacerbate symptoms whatsoever. Mm-hmm. at all. Generally speaking, everything from SIBO to ulcerative colitis to diverticulitis. I'm trying to think of Crohn's really significant gastrointestinal diseases or dysfunctions with the right soluble fiber.

[00:12:41] Megan: Do not get irritated. It's all about how those soluble fibers are metabolized by the microbes. If there's an overproduction of gas, there's an overproduction of gases by the microbiome. As it metabolizes these fibers, that gas irritates the lining of the intestine, [00:13:00] and you tend to have. Okay. Certain fibers, probably the most well known in our field for these different conditions is partially hydrolyzed GU gum, often thought of as sun Fiber, I think is the trademark name.

[00:13:14] Megan: That's the one that for years has been like, oh, you can give that to anyone. That's safe. For anyone. That's safe for anybody with SIBO and beyond. It is well tolerated and it is all about how it's metabolized by the microbiome. So whether you. Doing fantastically with your microbiome, but you have estrogen issues or you have constipation or diarrhea or some of these more significant GI dysfunctions or diseases with the right fiber, you can start at the beginning of treatment has been my experience with.

[00:13:43] Megan: The other adjunct treatments. Mm-hmm. . 

[00:13:44] Christa: Well, let's go into each type of the supplemental fibers. You just brought up one. So let's start with partially hydrolyzed score gum. 

[00:13:52] Megan: Yep. I wish I fully understood the biochemistry of why that is not irritating, but I can tell you this. The [00:14:00] viscosity of the soluble fiber tends to be the ticket.

[00:14:03] Megan: How much water does it hold? Okay, so fibers such as chia seed, partially hydrolyzed gu gum, gluco manin, which comes from the kojack root that's been used forever in Japan. These are fibers that pull water in. Cilium is this way as well. Pull water. Cilium is an interesting one though because it really pulls water in.

[00:14:23] Megan: It does that job extremely well. So I have a lot of patients that will start it and then immediately become bound up because it holds way too much water and then they're miserable. It's not because it's an irritant per se, it's because it's. It's absorbing too much water, right? Mm-hmm. , so this family of soluble fibers has a very high viscosity, holds a lot of water.

[00:14:42] Megan: There are other soluble fibers, and let's go back to the inland chick root family. Those are just, you know, if somebody comes, walks into the clinic and says, I can't do fiber. I just bloat like crazy. I'm miserable. Never ends. I can't get through my day. Go, okay, let's look at what you're taking [00:15:00] because there's probably inulin in this or there's probably trickery fitness, this, right?

[00:15:03] Megan: And they're less viscous. They're more easily broken down again by the, the microbiome. And so therefore, again, more gas. There are other food sources like fructooligosaccharides and resistant starches that are also metabolized by the microbiome, but they don't have viscosity. They're not in that soluble fiber world where they're binding and pulling water in in the way that these other soluble fibers are.

[00:15:26] Megan: So, and just to really be clear about that, the benefits of the binding of bile that we see that are so critical to the detoxification of our body and the movement of estrogen out of our. And by way of that, the reduction in histamine in our gastrointestinal tract. Therefore, the reduction of irritation and inflammation, that's only done with soluble fiber binding vial.

[00:15:48] Megan: So 

[00:15:49] Christa: let's make sure we are covering all the soluble fibers, because sometimes on labels, you see f o s, you see g o s. I don't know. I'm probably forgetting some other ones. Sun fiber is the gu Gumm. I think [00:16:00] that's partially ized gumm. It's just the patent patent one. It's mm-hmm and I have found that that's well tolerated, but there's G Os F Os.

[00:16:06] Christa: There's one more other one I'm missing, isn't there? I can't remember. 

[00:16:09] Megan: Yeah. Off the top of my head, I can't remember either. I don't even play in that. I don't, you know, that's a rodeo I stay away from because F Os and Goss are, can be really helpful for rebuilding a microbiome. , but to get through that hump of irritation at the beginning, it's really, really challenging.

[00:16:24] Megan: I'm sure you've had that experience too. It will cause discomfort and gas and bloating far more often than we see that happening with soluble fibers. 

[00:16:34] Christa: Okay, so let's talk about your favorite sources of soluble fibers. We've talked about some sources of soluble fibers. Let's talk about your favorite sources, and then I actually am gonna ask you about resistant versus.

[00:16:47] Christa: Soluble, and you just covered it very briefly, but you hear the word resistant starch. Mm-hmm. Which is a little different. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. . And you like cook and refrigerate rice. You cook and refrigerate. Yep. Uh, potatoes. And that can work well. I mean, for me [00:17:00] it, it tends to work well after a gut is corrected.

[00:17:02] Christa: But let's talk about, yeah. I'm actually gonna start there. Um, sure. Because that makes sense. Resistant starch versus, Soluble fiber. Sure. So a resistant 

[00:17:10] Megan: starch is a chain of glucose. So when we think about carbohydrates, we're thinking about the carbohydrates that can be absorbed and used in our body to generate energy, right?

[00:17:21] Megan: So those sugars, those glucose molecules move into the bloodstream and we are then able to metabolize them on our own. Resistant starches are not absorbed into the bloodstream. They are resistant to absorption. So they actually move into the bowels and become a food source for our microbiome. It much like soluble fiber.

[00:17:41] Megan: Okay, so that's resistant, non-resistant starches as far as how we're able to metabolize them. A resistant starch is a different molecular structure than a soluble fiber. There's no situation where a soluble fiber is going to be broken down and absorbed, and a resistant starch is not gonna bind. So there's a [00:18:00] differentiator.

[00:18:00] Megan: Hmm. Yeah. 

[00:18:01] Christa: Good. We could have a little chart. This is what this one is. This is what this one is. Yeah. All right. So back to, what are your favorite types or sources of soluble fibers? Like if someone walks into your office Yeah. And they've got estrogen access, would you start them? Are you gonna start them on fiber as your first line defense is part of the question too.

[00:18:19] Megan: That's a great question. So obviously in the nutrition field, we love for our patients to be able to do a lot of this with their food, and sometimes that's a huge challenge, especially in the world of gut issues and gut permeability because oftentimes the food sources that have the highest amount of soluble fiber.

[00:18:37] Megan: Seem to not be well tolerated at the beginning. So if we can't use food, if we can't use beans and lentils and flax and chia cetera, even avocado, brussel sprouts has soluble fiber. It's not just limited to the legumes and seeds, but if we know that we're not gonna hit our mark, which. In my general goal world for my patients as adults, it's about [00:19:00] 20 grams of soluble fiber a day.

[00:19:01] Megan: So 20 grams of insoluble. 20 grams of soluble. I'm gonna probably use a supplement, and as you introduced, I have my own supplement, so I use my own supplement in a clinical setting because I can dose it. So I know that I can start with, I'm gonna give you a quarter teaspoon. Now I'm gonna give you a half.

[00:19:19] Megan: So now I'm gonna, now we're gonna move up. It's harder to do that with food, right? It's harder to say exact doses and, and be really measured in how we're shifting through treatment protocols. So when I have a person that has estrogen access, or I work with a lot of teenagers that have hormone imbalance and a lot of women in perimenopause, that's probably the largest part of my practice.

[00:19:41] Megan: We start immediately with soluble. So my blends are organic. So that was one of the differentiators because again, they're supposed to help you detoxify, and we have a blend that is for people that have loose stool, a blend that is for people that have constipation, and then one that we call the daily [00:20:00] fix.

[00:20:00] Megan: And that is for often the most common for hormone issues. That said, it's really important to know that if you don't metabolize estrogen well through your liver, Which is often the case when we have these M T H F R mutations and other issues with toxins and, and there's a lot of genetic components to this.

[00:20:18] Megan: You can take all the soluble fiber you want, but the estrogen isn't making it to your gut to be bound. It's not making it onto the bile. So I have a two-part protocol with most of the women I work with, and one is a liver support that has calcium derate in it, and that's to help them start moving the estrogen through their liver.

[00:20:36] Megan: That's going to attach it to the bile, shift it into the gallbladder, into the small intestine, and then we use the soluble fiber to bind and we try to do that between meals. If you take the soluble fiber with your meals, it's gonna bind a lot of the fat in your food and less effectively bind your bile.

[00:20:53] Megan: So I have people take it away from their meals or an hour before their food, or even 15 minutes before their. 

[00:20:58] Christa: So I [00:21:00] want to go to kind of how you formulated this, for sure. Different conditions, but before we do that, you were talking about some of these vegetables where people say, but when I start to eat this, I have gas.

[00:21:11] Christa: So I actually wanna stop and talk about that verse, because that doesn't always mean that you can't tolerate it. Right short order. So let's address that problem. Like let's say, you know, I never eat brussel sprouts, but now that I'm eating Brussels sprouts or X Y, z, I have more gas. And so explain that for 

[00:21:26] Megan: people.

[00:21:27] Megan: Well, you know, I think sometimes we can get really hyper-focused on our gut symptoms and sort of move away from what is normal and what is abnormal. It's fairly normal when you eat cruciferous vegetables to have a little more movement in the colon. There's a lot of fiber there. Anytime you consume more fiber, You're going to have more activity in the lower abdomen.

[00:21:48] Megan: I, I always talk to my patients about, tell me where you're feeling this. Above the belly button or below the belly button, right? Because oftentimes these foods are being broken down in the colon and there is activity, so a little bit of movement, a little [00:22:00] bit of bloat. If you're eating a lot of vegetables, doesn't surprise me.

[00:22:03] Megan: Other hand, if it's uncomfortable. If it's excessive, we're gonna pull back a little bit and we're going to improve your microbiome because again, you should be able to eat these. . Right. Oftentimes also because I collaborate a lot with Chinese medicine providers, we're talking about can you tolerate raw food right now?

[00:22:22] Megan: Sometimes you can't. There's just not enough heat. There's not enough acid. There's not enough energy to break that raw food down well, and so we start on these vegetables pretty well cooked, and then we move to raw vegetables, if that's your preference, as your body's able to better break down. The vegetables, but that is insoluble fiber.

[00:22:40] Megan: Mm-hmm. , that's the insoluble fiber, you know, not breaking down. Well, can I offer 

[00:22:45] Christa: one other perspective and see if you agree with me? Yeah, yeah. I'll say that also. So I think that if you're just starting to eat these particular cruciferous vegetables that sometimes. You may not be making enzymes that break it down beautifully, and so it's like if [00:23:00] you just start to eat them and then eat them more regularly, you start to tolerate them better.

[00:23:05] Christa: I totally 

[00:23:06] Megan: agree. I totally agree. I think that's so often the case with anything in, in our diet. I'm sure you work with plenty of people that you know that when they move away from their current way of eating, there's a huge transitionary period, but then they adapt. I mean, Consuming sugar and then taking it out or moving to a higher fat or higher protein diet.

[00:23:25] Megan: So I do really encourage people to stick with it, you know, and there's digestive enzymes that can help as well. For sure. 

[00:23:32] Christa: So I want to underline something that you were talking about earlier, which is that fiber is necessitates your body's production of short chain fatty acids, which is a self-healing mechanism for.

[00:23:45] Christa: So then let's talk about how sometimes special diets are really tricky and I think this is partly a discussion on human instant gratification. And we don't have to get too into this, cuz I think we're both pretty balanced. Like I'm just a realistic [00:24:00] person that likes to eat food. And so that's just kind of my approach.

[00:24:02] Christa: And I assume my clients are kind of like that too, but I mean like, let's go after 2010, it was paleo and it was keto and the like after 2016 and now it's carnivore and it's like just a different flavor of. Thing. And I mean, I will say I indulge on healthfully watching carnivore people on Instagram, but out of curiosity, but I'm just like, hello, where are your short chain fatty acids in your fibers?

[00:24:28] Christa: Anyway, that's my opinion. I just don't see . I don't see it, but sometimes when people restrict all these carbs or these. Fibers initially when they've got a lot of gut dysbiosis and they feel better. I'm like, yeah, you had a bunch of gut imbalances, but I'd love to hear what your thought is there. Because to me, I'm like, this just doesn't make any brain, it doesn't make any 

[00:24:46] Megan: sense.

[00:24:48] Megan: you know, I was thinking all of those things and then I listened to a very disruptive podcast with Dr. Sonenberg a while back, and there [00:25:00] was, he did some really interesting research, so the research he. Found that yes, or our microbiome produces short fatty acids, which is the fuel source for our colon cells.

[00:25:10] Megan: Our colon cells rely on that, and one of the byproducts of that is that it keeps the environment and the colon anaerobic, which is really critical for not growing the type of microbes that will hurt you. They like oxygen and we do not like oxygen for them. Mm-hmm. , what they found was that people on ketogenic and carnivore diet, Do not actually rely on the short chain fatty acids.

[00:25:31] Megan: The colon cells will use ketones from the bloodstream to feed themselves. Mm-hmm. and my mind kind of went blown. Right. Like, ugh. That's crazy. It's interesting because I think we've seen all of these diet trends. You and I have have lived through this as providers and I see people that have extreme diagnos.

[00:25:52] Megan: Very severe illnesses, and sometimes a very restrictive diet seems to be the magic for a very severe illness, right? Like [00:26:00] ketogenic with epilepsy, et cetera. I think many of these diets are overused as weight management or even longevity optimization, hacking, et cetera. They're very hard to maintain long-term.

[00:26:13] Megan: And so back to transitions, right? You put yourself on a carnivore diet for quite a while and then you burn out cuz you don't wanna eat steak every day at lunch and you're over it, right? You have to then transition back and your microbiome is completely different at this point. That's a really hard transition and so I tend to be very middle of the road like you and try really hard to help my patients be able to eat a lot of foods, a lot of diversity, especially.

[00:26:40] Megan: after we get them through acute symptoms. Mm-hmm. . So what can we do forever? Right. And I think that is where we go back to things like soluble fiber. We know the human body thrives on that. That's, you know, we have epidemiological evidence for that. We used to eat up to 200 different types of soluble fiber in a year.

[00:26:58] Megan: You know, different varieties. [00:27:00] We, we just do better with that. And we see it in cardiovascular research. You know, all that soluble fiber keeps our vascular systems healthy, our brains healthy. , you know? So I guess I would say there's a time and a place for really restrictive diets, but man, they're not the best for the whole.

[00:27:15] Megan: Yeah, 

[00:27:16] Christa: no, that's cool to hear about. Thanks for sharing that because I thought there's gotta be something happening and I'm not surprised that the body has a mechanism. And way back when, when I worked for a fasting program, I did find literature that talked about our body does actually make short chain fatty acids through that process.

[00:27:32] Christa: But I'm not shocked that. , the body is adapting and then using ketones from the blood to to adapt. Overall, I just think I kind of like you. I think that I see a lot of burnout long term with something like that. And so if you want to do that, that's cool. And sometimes for people it feels really good and it's really gratifying cause they got kind of instant gratification.

[00:27:51] Christa: Yeah. But like you said, there is a time and a place where the diet shifts and it's just had a microbiome conference this weekend and I can't remember all the, this did come up a little bit cuz there was a little talk about [00:28:00] fasting and whatever and it wasn't a huge piece of it, but just. Even people who talk about this a lot have kind of started to talk about carb cycling and all the things.

[00:28:09] Christa: Yeah. Again, we're just being balanced. Like I think I get you and I probably both get questions occasionally from the general public. It's like, well, what should I be on? It's like, well, you know, we've probably already on our own, been on our personal journeys with experimentation of this. So it's like, I don't think it hurts to experiment with things if you just like to experiment.

[00:28:26] Christa: It's just that. I like to 

[00:28:29] Megan: eat. We like to eat and, but I think it's important too. And Chris, I think it, this is something your audience will probably find interesting. If you're coming from a place of dysbiosis, which a lot of people have grown up eating a processed food diet and a high sugar diet, that that's a gonna lend itself to dysbiosis, right?

[00:28:45] Megan: Mm-hmm. , one of the more recent areas of research they found is that if you eat a higher carbohydrate diet, more processed food, higher carbohydrate diet, and increase the level of candida in the colon, Especially in [00:29:00] tandem with other infections or dysbiotic microorganisms, you can actually shift your colon cells to relying on glucose for fuel and it does change the environment to an aerobic, an environment too much oxygen.

[00:29:15] Megan: Trying to move that back is a real challenge. It's really, really, really hard to do that. That is not something that happens overnight because the colon cells no longer want butyrate. They don't want short chain fatty acids anymore. They're highly reliant on glucose. Instead, they just don't wanna go back and we see that perpetuating these microbes that like to live in oxygen, they just Right.

[00:29:35] Megan: Environment. Mm-hmm. . And so you take a person like that and you put 'em on a carnivore. They feel amazing, dramatic. Cause it's like, oh, now I don't have all those toxins being produced by excess candid or excess. You know, we have in Portland actually tons of Giardia. We just have a very high level of Giardia and so we have a lot of patients battling that and it's similar.

[00:29:55] Megan: You'll get that oxygen-rich environment and a lot of symptoms. So I think people can [00:30:00] get, you know, in a couple days of being on a different diet, they feel like, oh my gosh, I'm a whole new person. But it's often because where they came from was. Really problematic, right? Yeah. It takes 

[00:30:09] Christa: like maybe three days to shift.

[00:30:11] Christa: Yeah. Microbio with diet. So if you do do like a significant experiment, it can be kind of cool. Yeah. So it's not like a poo poo, it's more like a, hey, you don't have to only eat carnivore for nine months. Right. , 

[00:30:23] Megan: right. You know? Right. 

[00:30:24] Christa: Let's make totally, but you can try something for a little bit and see if you like it, and then there's also gonna be a shift after that.

[00:30:31] Christa: So no matter what kind of diet shift you make, even if you decide to remove all the process. Things and just go to Whole Foods that are lower in sugar. You may still have a positive impact and maybe, right, like there's always a good first step. There's always a nice first step. 

[00:30:46] Megan: It's, yeah. Yeah. It's a more, I think, sustainable first step for sure.

[00:30:50] Megan: Mm-hmm. , 

[00:30:50] Christa: right? It's a good, that's a good pattern to start from like, let's start with whole colorful foods novel. Yeah. So, yeah. . Okay, so we covered [00:31:00] types of fibers, kind of, let's come back to that a little bit. So we talked about the utility of supplements in versus food, and that's reasonable, I think, because we're just not always perfect or we're traveling or whatever, and we do need to poop because we do need to clear things out.

[00:31:16] Christa: So you use. Types of essentially food-based fibers, but it seems like you use them in different ratios for different conditions. Mm-hmm. , this is just my assumption here. Yeah. So for example, if someone's having loose stool, you use chia seed powder. Yeah. Which is, so we know about like ground versus whole flax.

[00:31:36] Christa: Mm-hmm. . And when I read chisi powder, people don't use chia seed powder. They use chia seeds. Is there anything we should know about whole chia seeds versus chi seed? Because the carnivores, I like to follow complaint about chia seeds all the time and they're gelatinous mess getting stuck in the gut. So anything I should know about whole versus seed powder, because that's, you know, we do flax seed powder.

[00:31:59] Christa: Mm-hmm. and whole, [00:32:00] but we don't talk about chia seed powder. So before I continue anything to say about that, 

[00:32:04] Megan: Yeah, so when the chia seeds are ground down into a powder, they have more binding capacity and that's surface area. They are able to absorb more water and bind at a higher capacity to bile. Cool.

[00:32:17] Megan: Yeah. All right. And we don't, we don't see them a lot on the market, that's for sure. Cause do not make chia seed pudding out of chia seed powder. That will be, that will not be a success in your kitchen, but it's great as a supple. 

[00:32:28] Christa: Yeah. Well, I wanna digest all of these. I wanna to, uh, pun was not intended, but it came in anyway.

[00:32:35] Christa: So here we are. So gluco and we talked about from Conj. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Um, I think on the market, the only place I've remember seeing this is like in Miracle Noodles and things. Yeah. I don't really see that anywhere else. It's otherwise you're only gonna find Gluco Manin in a supplement, and correct me if I'm wrong.

[00:32:50] Christa: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Aisha Gum. This is from a tree, is that right? Yeah. And it's 

[00:32:55] Megan: a really. Binder as well. It's also very well known to balance blood sugar. The [00:33:00] same with gluco manin. And so that's why those were added to my supplement line in part because yes, they do all the binding, they do the expansion to help you feel fuller.

[00:33:08] Megan: They feed the microbiome, but they're known as as glucose managers. 

[00:33:12] Christa: Mm-hmm. , do these fit under the glucose oligosaccharides or do we not even care about categorizing them? I don't. Okay. Do they fit under any. 

[00:33:22] Megan: Within the, you know, of my knowledge base around fiber, they fall under purely under the soluble fiber.

[00:33:29] Megan: They are, yeah. Yeah. Just curious cuz they're not, they're not a legal hacker 

[00:33:32] Christa: sac. Yeah, they're, they're kind of like, there's kind of a lot of tangents we could go off on. I know. Then, but then finally there's sun fiber, which is like really a trademarked type of awar. Yeah, 

[00:33:42] Megan: it's a, it's awar that has been broken down.

[00:33:45] Megan: Yeah, it's been hydrolyzed, so it is easier to break down in the system. And it doesn't only exist as sun fiber, they just have trademarked. Yeah. Partially hetero gu gum. And oftentimes you will see sun fiber as the additive in other people's 

[00:33:59] Christa: blends. [00:34:00] Mm-hmm. , so we've got tree, tree root seed. Yeah. . Yeah. For soluble fibers.

[00:34:05] Megan: And then cilium and then cilium. Two of our blends have cilium in them as well. Okay. The hus. 

[00:34:10] Christa: Okay, so if we're loose, you're doing more chia. More acacia gum. More gluco, man. More sun fiber. You started and you said, oh, chia powder when blended, you know, has more binding power. Mm-hmm. . So maybe you can kind of go through and tell me where, and then the cilium has.

[00:34:29] Christa: I thought that one really soaked up water. Oh, I see what 

[00:34:32] Megan: this is. Cilium. Yeah, cilium is what we, I have a more weighted amount of cilium in my blend called Firm Up, which is for loose stools because it absorbs so much water. And you know what ended up happening was prior to developing Fluor philosophy, I would have people call me and just say, I'm constipated.

[00:34:51] Megan: What do I do? And I would put them religiously on two tablespoons of chie today. Magnesium citrate and a gluten, dairy free diet for two weeks. [00:35:00] Just and then call me, tell me what happens. And nine times outta 10, they would resolve. But it never got them better. It wasn't like, it was like, okay, now you're gonna do this forever if you wanna not have constipation.

[00:35:10] Megan: Right. Well, I was aiming to create a product that would actually help them heal their gut and get better and not have to. Live on magnesium citrate and you know, restricted diet forever. But that's where the chia seed actually came from when I was thinking about these blends. Cause I had so much experience using just chia seed and just illium for people that had loose stool.

[00:35:30] Megan: Yeah, no, 

[00:35:30] Christa: that's more novel. I don't really see chia seed in, in different blends. Yeah. So more illium when they are loose because it binds up water andia when they're constipated because it just helps. Cool. . Yep. All right, so those are the main pieces. You talked about how I think occasion gluco are really great for blood sugar.

[00:35:49] Christa: Mm-hmm. , we talked about chia seed and spiny powder and illium, and it's water loving power. Let's talk about clinical outcomes. If people are taking soluble fiber consistently, we kind of went through how this [00:36:00] can be a food source, this a food source for the microbiata to kind of heal itself, but what are the outcomes if you're taking fiber consistently?

[00:36:07] Christa: We talked a little bit. By estrogen hormones, but what are some of the things that have just kind of blown your mind? 

[00:36:13] Megan: Yeah. Well, circling back to estrogen or hormones, there's many situations where that blows my mind because I work with people that have had hormone imbalances for decades. I actually, before I took this product to market, I had a really close friend who had had hormone imbalance.

[00:36:30] Megan: Very severe p m s, very heavy bleeding. And she was doing all the things right? Right. She ate this beautiful whole food diet. She worked out every day, she's in the health field herself. And I started dropping off these little packets of soluble fiber mixes that I was like mixing up in little blows in my kitchen at home.

[00:36:46] Megan: And I drop 'em on her door and say like, try this. Tell me what happens. I think if you find your estrogens, you're gonna do better. And she started. So much better so quickly. She started in two months. She was having significantly fewer hormone [00:37:00] symptoms and her bleeding was well controlled. She became my business partner.

[00:37:03] Megan: She was the person I called when I decided to take it to market cuz she was a business strategist. And I said, okay, you've had this experience, right? But she's one of probably now hundreds of women that have had that experience. We had a patient who started taking this and canceled her hyster. because her hormone symptoms improved so significantly.

[00:37:21] Megan: So I get to see that a lot. I really, as a female myself, love seeing when people get to their period sneaks up on them, right? Instead of being horribly miserable for the week before. Mm-hmm. . So that's great. I do work with a lot of people that do suffer, constipation, diarrhea, and I will say this is a fantastic product for people that have diarrhea to mitigate symptom.

[00:37:44] Megan: there is always a cause of diarrhea. Nine times outta 10 in the clinic. It's a parasitic infection when we test. Mm-hmm. . So I don't wanna encourage people to use this product and because they're not a symptomatic think they're better because again, there's often a trigger of that that's infectious. But we do see those [00:38:00] symptoms get better so people get reduced urgency and they can go live their lives, which is really nice.

[00:38:05] Megan: But we use it a lot for people that are suffering ulcerative colitis and are suffering with Crohn's and sibo, and we see them get. that, that is pretty incredible when we pair those things with L-glutamine and zinc and some other things that support the microbiome, cuz it's never a one-off. You know, you and I both know this, it's not like one thing fixes everything, right?

[00:38:26] Megan: It's a support that really helps the healing process because of what it does in the body. But when you see people that have suffered for a decade with a gastrointestinal disease that get an a significant improvement in their symptoms, it's very gratify. And just constipation on its own. I mean, we work with a lot of little kiddos that are just miserable.

[00:38:46] Megan: And this is something we teach the parents how to cook it into their meals and how to put it in different breads and recipes and this and that. So they're getting all the soluble fiber in their diet cuz the kids don't really wanna mix up and drink it. And we see great [00:39:00] improvements. So it's it. It's 

[00:39:01] Christa: gratifying.

[00:39:02] Christa: Yeah, for sure. Before we kind of wrap up and I didn't talk about where do people find you, one thing that I think we touched on a little bit, but was there anything else that we need to say for people that are dealing with small intestinal bacteria overgrowth or IBS like symptoms where there's fibers that they cannot tolerate?

[00:39:19] Christa: I think we, we kind of covered like trickery, inulin, et cetera, and I just wanna kind of like wrap that up into a bow. Insoluble definitely a problem for. Or they can be. They can be. They can be. Yeah. I meant more like chiri and inland. Cause I agree with you. You see that and I think to make that easier, if you're seeing like a fiber bar, it's probably got inland and chi.

[00:39:38] Christa: Yeah, yeah. You know, so you may start to see some digestive distress from that. Is there anything else that we should make sure, put an asterisk next to, if someone's dealing with gut issues right now, like what would your advice be to them if they would like to be able to. Fibers like, and I think we have covered that, but we're gonna wrap it up into a nice little package.

[00:39:55] Christa: Yeah. Cause we talked about a lot of things. 

[00:39:57] Megan: Yeah. I would say hyperfocus, [00:40:00] and especially in SIBO because this is one that just, I feel like a lot of controversy around sibo. My experience with SIBO is that the symptoms of bloating are caused by irritation of the intestinal wall, which can be irritated by micro.

[00:40:16] Megan: Fermenting things metabolizing in the small intestine, but also can be caused by other things irritating the wall of the intestine. So for instance, there's a provider in town that prescribes a, a drug called Chromin. Chromin calms the histamine producing molecules in the small intestine. And guess what?

[00:40:32] Megan: SIBO symptoms go away. It doesn't kill the microbes, it just calms the irritating response of the wall of the intestines. So when I work with people that have SIBO symptoms, because that one's so common, it is a focus on reducing sugars because that is going to irritate the, the lining of the intestines.

[00:40:49] Megan: We typically will take people off of food sensitivities temporarily, but soluble fibers will improve the situation. These specific soluble fibers, they will not irritate those microbes. [00:41:00] Those microbes are not going. Ferment and metabolize those and cause more irritation to the lining. Yes. Chicory root inulin, yes.

[00:41:07] Megan: These soluble fibers will actually help move things through, help provide those short chain fatty acids and, and improve the health of the, even the small intestinal 

[00:41:15] Christa: wall. One last thing I was thinking that we should underline. That's where people can find you online. 

[00:41:21] Megan: Oh, great. Yes, so you can find me@thinkfluoroscopy.com.

[00:41:26] Christa: Well, thank you so much for coming on today, Megan. One more thing I wanted to underline was that Sure. Diversity, which we know, and I'm gonna very much paraphrase this, but since I was at this microbiome conference this weekend, they were talking about looking at microbiota data. , you know the original people who did the like worldwide studies?

[00:41:43] Christa: Yeah. I can't remember the name of them. Marin now doesn't matter, but I believe it was at like the United States essentially is like one quarter of is is diverse. Like we have like about 25% of the diversity that we could potentially see if people were doing like lots of diversity and feeding lots of different microbes.

[00:41:59] Christa: And diversity is [00:42:00] like how the, it's the body's checks and balances system. So it's nice to see today. I'm glad we talked about like multiple food-based sources cuz they all. Preferentially feed in a little different way. So they do. Yeah. Anyway. 

[00:42:11] Megan: Yeah, diversity 

[00:42:12] Christa: is key. Diversity is key. Well, thank you so much for coming on today.

[00:42:15] Megan: Thanks for having me. It was a lot of, Sharing 

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