Full Episode Transcript
Apologies for any transcription errors!
Matt: Welcome to Nutrition for Mortals, the podcast that says life is too damn short to spend your time and attention worrying about your food choices. So let's take a deep breath and then join us two registered dietitians and friends as we explore the world of nutrition with a special focus on cultivating a healthy and peaceful relationship with food. My name is Matt Priven and I am joined as always by my co-host and the best dietitian on planet earth, Jen Baum. Hey Jen.
Jen: Hey Matt. And just a super quick reminder, if you're enjoying the show, maybe think about giving us a nice review wherever you listen to podcasts. We are on Instagram at Nutrition For Mortals, and we announce our shows there ahead of time. So that's kind of fun. And you can always email us with show ideas at nutritionformortals@gmail.com because we love getting ideas and we love hearing from everyone. Okay, so Matt, what are we talking about today?
Matt: So, Jen, today we are talking about the longstanding belief that our insides are disgusting and filthy and it's our job...it's our responsibility to keep our pipes clean.
Jen: Okay, so we're talking about gut health it sounds like.
Matt: Yeah, we're talking about gut health, we're talking about gut cleanses, we're talking about detoxes and resets and all these things I'm sure everyone has heard about. And the more I looked into this, the more I realized this has been a fixation of humanity for thousands of years. We are obsessed with keeping our insides clean, and this goes way back. So I want to talk about that, but I also want to talk about the modern wellness industry marketing all of these diets and juice cleanses and supplements and homeopathic remedies and sometimes invasive procedures. I want to talk about all these efforts to achieve purity of the gut that are so popular and commonplace these days.
Jen: Well, and why I'm excited about this topic is because I feel like gut health is so big right now. I feel like I cannot go online without seeing some type of new product advertised for gut health, an influencer focusing on how to optimize the microbiome. So I feel like this is very current right now, so I'm very excited to dig into this. Okay. So where are we going to jump in today?
Matt: Alright, so let's go first way, way, way, way, way back. Let's go to Egypt, circa 1500 bc. Did you expect to go that far back?
Jen: I mean, it's the obvious starting point, I think.
Matt: Well, let me say, cultures all over the world, China, India, Egypt, everyone came to this conclusion that the waste in our intestines is there way too long and is a major cause of disease. And we need to get our heads around that concept to really understand everything we're going to talk about today. So this belief was that the food we eat essentially rots or putrefies in our gut, and then this causes all sorts of ailments. So naturally interventions were focused on getting this putrefying material out. And so in Egypt in 1500 bc, we start seeing enemas performed to essentially cleanse the colon. And so that's where I want to start this disgusting conversation today.
Jen: I feel like you picked one of the most disgusting starting points that you could have, so thank you for that.
Matt: Okay. Yeah, A late trigger warning for poop talk people.
Jen: Yeah, right. I know people are like, I could have used that three minutes ago. Yeah. Okay. So we've gone way back. It sounds like we now recognize that there's been an emphasis on trying to optimize gut health for thousands of years, but it goes beyond just trying to relieve constipation. There's also this idea that the kind of waste inside us is causing disease. And so what's next? How does that evolve over history?
Matt: Yeah, exactly. So we see not much change over history. And so as we kind of fast forward through, we pass by Greece circa mid first millennium bc, we see Hippocrates giving enemas to balance people's humors. And it kind of continues and there's no real intervention, or I should say there's no real development in our thinking about medicine or health that successfully debunks this idea of the benefit of cleansing our colons. It survives so many steps. You have Louis Pasteur talking about preventing the spread of microorganisms, and that really changes the medical landscape, but it doesn't really do anything to debunk the idea that we need to cleanse our colons because now we just think of that rotting putrefying material as being another source of potential microorganism spreading and infection. So it really holds on for a long time. And there was one quote I had to share with you from the mid 1800’s. This is from a French physician named Charles Bouchard who is quoted saying that someone who is backed up with waste is always working towards his destruction. He makes continual attempts at suicide by intoxication.
Jen: My gosh. Well, and the word that stands out to me in that quote is intoxication, because now we're moving into the language of toxins. And if there's one word that is like my pet peeve in our current wellness diet culture, I can't stand the word toxins because that's usually attached to you need to rid your body of toxins. And we could have a whole episode about why that's incorrect in many ways. But this sounds like the beginning of toxin talk. Am I right?
Matt: You're exactly right. And I want to add a prefix to that. Auto. Autointoxication is this new term of art that comes around in the mid 1800’s and persists for a while, but autointoxication is the word used to describe self poisoning from one's own retained waste, and it really caught on.
Jen: Can I also say, Matt, that you just showed a lot of self-restraint by not playing Toxic by Britney Spears right there. I mean, I was bracing for it, I was ready for it.
Matt: I do have it in the soundboard, as you know. Are you challenging me?
Jen: I kind of feel like I am. I mean, I was just was waiting for it.
Matt: I'm not going to play it just to subvert the expectations here.
Jen: Just to spite me? Okay, that's fine. That's fine. Okay. So we have a new word autointoxication. And when you say it really caught on, tell me more about what that means and how it caught on.
Matt: Yeah, so in the early 1900's, this idea catches fire and autointoxication becomes the sort of catchall diagnosis. Like you go to the doctor with a headache, autointoxication, anxiety, autointoxication, insomnia, obviously digestive complaints, impotence, even things like heart disease, cancer. People were ascribing the diagnosis of autointoxication to what people were experiencing saying: the problem here is your waste contributing to your disease. And so it really catches on, especially again in the late 1800s, early 1900s.
Jen: Weird. Okay, so this is a autointoxication is a formal medical diagnosis that sounds like it's kind of being used willy-nilly all over the place to diagnose anything that's wrong with people. And the idea here is that you have rotting petrifying waste inside you that is causing whatever disease you're experiencing or whatever symptom you're experiencing.
Matt: Exactly, exactly. I'm going to have you read a quote that I think puts a nice point on this. So if you wouldn't mind, please read this from the British Medical Journal. This was published in the year 2000.
Jen: Okay. It says, quote, from the 1900s into the 1920s, auto intoxication was regarded by much of the medical profession and most of the public as the most insidious disease of all since it was in essence all diseases. Okay.
Matt: Yeah, I think that sums it up, right? It's suddenly everything, it's the magic holy grail of disease pathology. Yeah.
Jen: Well, this is also a period of time where I feel like there was a big push to try to find the magic bullet of all diseases. I mean, it's very common, I feel like at this point in history, that medical professionals are looking for what is the underlying cause or pathology for everything. So this kind of aligns with that.
Matt: Yeah. It's so crazy to me. We're now like 3,500 years into the story, and all we did was come up with a fancier word for the same idea, but this is when we start to see the introduction of cereals, like Kellogg’s All Bran that were being recommended by almost all physicians to treat autointoxication. It really was like an intervention, like eat your All Bran cereal to deal with autointoxication. And in fact, one of the Kellogg brothers who started the company, John Kellogg, he was a physician who also prescribed enemas to like everyone he saw. So there was really.. the big enema was behind Kellogg's All Bran.
Jen: Wow. So these cereal were developed as a treatment for autointoxication?
Matt: Yeah. There was this pervasive fear of being constipated because it was supposedly going to cause all of these ailments. And so I think the lay person in the early 1900s knew the term autointoxication, but the real fear was: do not get constipated. It is very dangerous for you and cereals, especially high fiber cereals, were meant to help prevent those conditions from setting in. I do want to say just because I've invoked the name John Harvey Kellogg, he was a truly horrible person. So I just got to get this out there. He was a vocal advocate for eugenics, sterilization of people he deemed less intelligent. He was a noted racist and segregationist. There's a lot to the story. I will just add, he was vehemently in support of sexual abstinence for religious reasons. It led him to perform barbaric female circumcisions.
Jen: No.
Matt: He was a bad dude. And so just noted. But he is sort of behind the story of both enemas and enema culture in the early 19 hundreds, which is sort of an interesting tangent. And then also sort of marketing cereals and products that you would eat in this case to try to deal with this concern.
Jen: Okay. Well, I am glad that you pointed that out, but can we just go back to talking about enema culture in the early 1900s because I'm very caught on that term right now. And so in addition to there being cereals to help people from getting constipated, was there also a big diagnosis or recommendation that people be using enemas all the time?
Matt: Yeah, now we start to shift to call them colonics or colonic irrigation or colon hydrotherapy. And so for example, John Harvey Kellogg had this clinic in Michigan where it was like a spa where you'd come and you'd get your enemas and you might also be treated for the disease or condition that you have. He was a surgeon at the same time, but he would invite you to his little spa where you could go play tennis outside and then get an enema. And he gave yogurt enemas and he was getting pretty weird with it.
Jen: What yogurt enemas. No, thanks.
Matt: Yeah, I know. It's so gross.
Jen: That's disgusting. That is. Okay, I'm going to move on from that. Where are we going next? I just want to move on from that in that image..
Matt: I don't really need to get into the modern landscape of where we are with this whole thing, but let me say these colonics are still everywhere. There's definitely risks associated with getting them done. And so whether it's a coffee enema or a colonic or whatever it might be, the risk, the major one being colonic perforation, which can lead to major surgery. It can be life-threatening, not recommended. They're still used in hospitals and can be done somewhat safely to deal with chronic constipation, severe constipation when all other methods fail. So it is something that can be used and has a place in modern medicine but not recommended for home use or going to a spa for this kind of thing.
Jen: And also, this might be a good time. Can we debunk the idea of autointoxication too? Because I feel like this idea is pretty nonsensical, but it definitely sounds like it continued into much of the 1900s.
Matt: Yeah. Okay. So say it with me. Our poop is not rotting inside us and causing disease.
Jen: I don't want to say that.
Matt: That's my bumper sticker. Have you seen me on the road? So many of the diseases for which autointoxication was the diagnosis are now understood to be caused by other factors, heart disease not caused by putrefying waste, impotence not caused by putrefying waste. So the process of food decomposing in our gut is actually the process of our gut microbiome breaking down our food..when we eat, we get some and they get some. We are organisms that work synergistically with our gut microbiome. So when they break down some of the food we eat they produce byproducts. And many of them are actually really good and essential for our health. So we rely on the microorganisms in our gut. And even with digestive issues, almost all of our digestive issues are not made better by gut cleaning or gut cleanses. They're actually made worse. It might feel nice for a few hours after you have an enema if you've been severely constipated, but that's very different than prescribing a colonic or colon hydrotherapy for a patient with a headache on the notion that the contents of their gut are trying to kill them.
Jen: Right? Yeah. Completely different things. And I mean, Matt, I think that colon flushing or colonics, that's one supposed solution to optimizing gut health or keeping your gut healthy. But there are lots of other products out there that I feel like are being marketed to cleanse the gut. And so can we also talk about other methods that are out there that are supposedly necessary for optimal gut health?
Matt: Yes. And we can finally put colon cleanses aside. You ready to move on?
Jen: I literally just tried to ask that question to move on from enemas and colonics.
Matt: Yeah, we are done. We are done. Not that it's going to get that much nicer to talk about, but we can move on. So the options are really endless for other interventions that are recommended.. in getting ready to chat with you about this, I had a list with 40 or 50 diets and protocols recommended by doctors and laypeople, and I felt like I hadn't even scratched the surface. It's just so congested. This conversation about gut health right now. So I've got two categories of interventions we can chat about. First I want to talk about what I'm calling concoctions and magic potions you need to drink to flush out the pipes, like juice cleanses, smoothie cleanses, salt water flushes, things like that. And then we can talk about supplements marketed for gut cleansing specifically.
Jen: Okay. So it sounds like you've narrowed this down into two big categories that you came across in our modern day culture around gut health. And so let's start with what you're calling magic potions, which I love. Tell me, what are some of the big magic potions that you saw floating out there in nutrition land?
Matt: Well, Jen:
Soundboard: Did you know blending pineapple and cucumber creates a juice that will detoxify the colon and remove excess waste from the intestine?
Matt: Did you know that?
Jen: Matt? I had no idea. Pineapple and cucumber juice blended together?
Matt: Yeah, it does all the things that they were trying to do in ancient Egypt, it detoxifies and removes excess waste. So that's awesome. Right?
Jen: I mean, yeah, except does pineapple and cucumber juice actually detoxify the colon, Matt?
Matt: No, it definitely doesn't.
Jen: Hey Matt, did you know that actually doesn't work?
Matt: That TikTok voice is so triggering for me at this point. I am sure everyone feels that way, but I mean, there's a lot of claims out there, but this is a big one. You see this repetitively: blending pineapple and cucumber apparently has this additive effect where the magical enzymes from the pineapple mix with the fiber of the cucumber and create a sort of super duo that detoxifies the colon. But no, I mean, it does have fiber that can help move things along, but that's not a magic property of this drink. That's true of hundreds of foods. Pineapple does contain an enzyme called bromelain, which you may have heard of, which is often said to be the source of this magic detox situation. But there's no studies showing that bromelain does anything to cleanse the gut. I mean, this is one where it certainly isn't bad for you. There's other reasons you might want to drink this. It's a good source of fluid, vitamin C, carbohydrates, fiber. But that's about it. There's nothing that can show us this is a magic combination, but it doesn't really stop the internet from pushing this idea over and over and over again.
Jen: Right. Okay. So we can cross off pineapple cucumber juice as magic potion number one. What about other magic potions out there to cleanse our gut or optimize our gut health?
Matt: Yeah, I want to bring up apple cider vinegar next, which I can't believe we haven't talked about yet.
Jen: ACV!I know..
Matt: ACV!
Jen: I know, we have not talked about this yet on the show. And apple cider vinegar is one of those I feel like catchall remedies for everything.
Matt: So specifically with apple cider vinegar, the idea is it's going to help you digest better. And there's been a lot of fear mongering over the years about how essentially we're unable to digest food without the aid of apple cider vinegar. And a lot of this started as a marketing effort by Paul Bragg, maker of Bragg apple cider vinegar. And if you think you don't know that particular brand, just Okay, picture a bottle of apple cider vinegar. Yeah, that's the one. That's the one you're thinking of.
Jen: Yeah. There's only one basically..
Matt: Glass bottle, yellow label, red banner that says Bragg. Also maker of nutritional yeast and a bunch of other things. But I do want to send people in the direction of Maintenance Phase. They did a wonderful episode on Paul Bragg and apple cider vinegar that kind of goes into his history and the story a little bit more. But when it comes to cleansing our gut, one of the big claims about apple cider vinegar is that it gives you important enzymes that you need to digest your food. And without these enzymes, you kind of know the story. Now food isn't going to digest properly and then all known diseases will ascend upon you within 48 hours. And so we're often told that apple cider vinegar needs to include the mother in order to do its magic. Jen, are you hip to the mother?
Jen: I mean, kombucha is my favorite drink of all time. So yes, I know about the mother.
Matt: Did you ever make kombucha at home?
Jen: No. No. Don't got time for that. But I drink a lot of it.
Matt: I was really into making booch at home for a while, and so I spent a lot of time with the mother, but it's actually a quite easy process and it's kind of fun. It's a little science project at home, a little fermentation project. So basically the mother is a mixture of bacteria and yeast that allows for the fermentation process to happen. When the vinegar is being made in bottles of apple cider vinegar, you often see it kind of settle to the bottom. There's this thick cloud. And as you said, it also happens with kombucha. And I want to play a clip now of a doctor. Please remember, doctor, talking about the magical enzymes that apple cider vinegar with the mother can give us.
Soundboard: And those special enzymes in the mother is essential for breaking down foods so that your body can make use of the nutrients that you consume. Now, most raw foods do contain live enzymes, and that's healthy, but when we heat up those raw foods, those enzymes die. And what about the processed and the refined foods that you're eating in the box or on the shelves that has no enzymes? So we're causing a deficiency within our body, but apple cider vinegar, the mother has those specific enzymes that's going to make up for those lost enzymes that you're not getting.
Jen: And for only $19.95, you too can buy my supplement of apple cider vinegar with the mother.
Matt: With. the. mother.
Jen: I also love how he makes it sound like we evolved to need apple cider vinegar in order to digest our food. As in, there's no way to digest our food properly unless we are consuming apple cider vinegar with the mother.
Matt: Exactly. We need it. We evolved with it. The mother has always been there for us, for our body is deficient in enzymes needed to digest food.
Jen: Well, Matt, do we need apple cider vinegar to digest our food properly and to then rid our body of toxic waste?
Matt: I would guess that people listening to this are already shouting this one in their cars. No, we don't need apple cider vinegar to digest our food. Our body produces its own enzymes to break down our food. We got all the bases covered on our own. Our pancreas creates a digestive juice that gets pumped into our small intestine that contains the enzymes that we need, the stuff to break down protein. We have protease to break down fat. We have lipase, which is the enzyme there if we want to break down starch into the glucose molecules, we can utilize. We have amylase from our pancreas. And so we do this all ourselves. We don't need help generally speaking.
Jen: So it turns out you were the mother all along.
Matt: Wow. That’s a real M night Shamalan twist you just laid on us there. I guess I will say there are rare situations where folks have an insufficiency in their innate enzyme production. This is usually a side effect of another disease like cystic fibrosis for example, or celiac disease in some cases. And the symptoms of enzyme insufficiency, it's not that you're backed up with waste in a dangerous way. It's typically quite the opposite where food's coming out undigested, you might be experiencing unintentional weight loss. You just can't get enough nourishment in. And so it doesn't sort of play perfectly into this paradigm of putrefying waste that we started our story with.
Jen: Yeah, that's an excellent thing to clarify. So we can, I feel like confidently check off or cross off apple cider vinegar from our list of necessary things to consume in order to optimize gut health. Do you have any more magic potions for me before we move on?
Matt: Yeah, I'll give you one more. So salt water flushes, are you familiar with salt water flushing?
Jen: No, actually I am not.
Matt: Okay, perfect. So this is basically where you put two teaspoons of salt in a liter of water and you shake it up and then you chug it, and then essentially you are pulling all of the water in your body through osmosis into your intestines, and then you have massive diarrhea. There's no other way to say that. It is really gnarly. It is used as rapid colonoscopy prep in hospitals. If someone needs to have a colonoscopy like stat, this is something that can be done.. essentially being an emergency laxative. But this is something people are doing at home for gut health, which is crazy to me.
Jen: Is this really popular right now too? Is that how you came across this?
Matt: Yes. Unfortunately, this is a big wellness TikTok thing right now.
Jen: That sounds terrible. I'm not sure which sounds worse. A yogurt colonic or a saltwater flush.
Matt: Thankfully we don't have to make this Sophie's choice that you've proposed.
Jen: But we know that this cannot be a good thing. Two teaspoons of salt is a huge amount of sodium and people, it sounds like are chugging this within a couple minutes. And so why don't you talk about the risks here, because I imagine there are some pretty big risks to chugging a whole liter of saltwater.
Matt: Oh, absolutely. So as you pull water into the intestines because of this sodium concentration you've just chugged, you risk significant electrolyte imbalances and dehydration, which at best can leave you feeling kind of weak and dizzy, but at worse can lead to seizures and major heart problems, especially for those more vulnerable, if you have high blood pressure or heart disease at baseline, this is not good for the kidneys. It gives them a lot of work to do. So yeah, there's really no upsides to this one.
Jen: Yeah, this sounds really risky to me. And I guess I wondered, did you find any connections to eating disorders or disordered eating and people abusing saltwater flushes in that realm?
Matt: Yeah, I absolutely did. I'm glad you brought that up. I was a little hesitant to even put this on the list because of this fact, but I think it's infiltrated normal wellness culture enough where I wanted to point it out and be able to chat about it with you. So the answer is definitely yes. There's a big crossover with eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia especially. This is definitely an eating disorder behavior: abuse of laxatives. And so that sort of adds to the risks here, certainly. And I think a lot of people would say that doing saltwater flushes, the risks are overhyped and they don't agree. But I don't agree with that. Not only does the rationale of gut cleansing make no sense as we've been discussing, but saltwater flush can be really dangerous and abusing laxatives can really cause permanent damage to the system and can really, really mess up the gut microbiome that we coexist with. So again, no upsides here and unfortunately a lot of crossover with eating disorder symptomology.
Jen: Yeah, this one sounds really risky and it also sounds very intense for the digestive system. If this is used in the hospital setting for rapid colonoscopy prep, I would imagine that this would be a very big shock to the system. And if someone was doing this over and over, I can see some real risks to digestive health overall.
Matt: Yes, exactly. So I'm glad we talked about it, but we can leave salt water flushes in the rest of the magic potions there for now.
Jen: Good. Okay. And it sounds like we're heading to supplements next and gut health supplements. Okay. So where are we starting with those?
Matt: Yeah, so again, there's a zillion supplements out there for gut cleansing, gut detox and resets and all those buzzwords. A lot of them are in fact just laxatives, but we kind of covered that. That's kind of boring too. So I'll skip those. I'll skip the probiotics that are marketed for gut resets because that's like a whole can of worms. But the most popular category of supplements for gut cleansing is fiber supplements. And perhaps my favorite product I came across is called Colon Broom.
Jen: Oh, I know this one.
Matt: You Do?
Jen: I know it. I see it on social media all the time. Yes. I think, isn't this the one that's like every human being has 13 pounds of poop sitting in there intestine at one time?
Matt: Yeah. There was a lot of talk about poop being stuck inside you, and you need the custodian system of colon broom to come sweep it away from you. It just makes me laugh so much. This idea that there's a broom inside of you sweeping you clean.
Jen: Okay. Tell me more about, because it sounds like you did a little bit of a deep dive into Colon Broom. So tell me more about it and what you found.
Matt: I got sucked in by the name. I got sucked in by the silly marketing and branding, which is pretty cringey. There's all these pictures of influencers, mostly women showing their abs and smiling, holding a bottle of Colon Broom as if to say, I just had my colon swept and I'm finally happy. So it just made me laugh. And so I usually just follow my laughter, and so this is one of those situations.
Jen: Well, and what is Colon Broom exactly? I mean, what's the main active ingredient in this supplement?
Matt: So the fiber source here, and basically what the supplement is, is psyllium husk, which is, I think people are familiar with psyllium husk. It's Metamucil. It's just a fiber source that is really commonplace nowadays. So Colon Broom is Metamucil for people who want to pay four times as much.
Jen: Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? The marketing, unbelievable marketing here. It's essentially just repackaged Metamucil, but they make it seem like they are selling something so incredible, so novel. And now we're just back to fiber.
Matt: And while psyllium husk is a really good source of soluble fiber, a serving has three grams of fiber. So you could take Colon Broom or you could eat an apple.
Jen: No, Matt, that's too simple.
Matt: Or have some oatmeal or a small amount of black beans would give you the same amount of fiber and soluble fiber. There's so many things you could do to get three grams of fiber, including a handful of dark chocolate covered almonds would do the same thing as Colon Broom. And so I don't think that Colon Broom and the magical psyllium husk is going to cleanse your gut in any meaningful way. Although people do feel a benefit from fiber supplements, but I don't think you need to pay Colon Broom money for it. And their promises on their website are truly absurd.
Jen: Well, what are they? Tell me about their claims. I always love hearing the claims of these supplement companies because they're always over the top outrageous. It always starts with, you'll feel better digestively and it ends with, and you'll be a multimillionaire by the end of taking Colon Broom.
Matt: Yeah, exactly. So this is one of the websites where they make you take a quiz. And we love a quiz here at Nutrition For Mortals
Jen: I love a good quiz. Yes, I do.
Matt: And so in taking this quiz, I kind of learned about what they're trying to promise you. And so just to back up a little bit, there's the classic approach here, which is like, we'll flush out the toxins that are causing you to feel unwell. And then there's other companies that do what I would call weight loss dog whistling, where they say things like, is your gut sluggish and making you feel heavy? You want to feel a sense of lightness and a relief that will allow you to feel more confident in your body where they don't say it, but they kind of say it. And with Colon Broom… going through this quiz, the dog whistle kind of turns into a foghorn. You're like, what is happening here? So they go, how much weight do you want to lose? I played along and clicked numbers, and they're like, yeah, we got something that can help you with that. It was a lot like the Noom experience from the past episode where I talked about Noom. They basically promise you weight loss through taking psyllium husk, and they show you a graph of how much weight you're going to lose by a specific date. And they predicted, based on the random numbers I selected, I'd lose 17 pounds in the first month of taking the frickin fiber supplement. It was crazy what I was experiencing. I was very surprised.
Jen: Well, now we are directly in the gut health to weight loss pipeline. There's just such a strong connection. Like I said before, I feel like gut health is used as code word for weight loss now much in the same way that balance your hormones is masking this idea of promised weight loss. And I hate it. I just hate it, Matt.
Matt: I hate it too. This is where it stops being funny for us, I think is like, oh, it's a funny company. Oh, look at their marketing so silly. And then they drop this on you and you're like, burn it all down. I don't like this anymore.
Jen: Burn it to the ground. Exactly. Exactly. Well, and I think we can very definitively and definitely say that psyllium husk, I mean, fiber is a good thing, and there are plenty of edible sources of fiber and people, it's good when people get enough fiber, but taking something like Colon Broom is not necessary, nor is it going to do all of the things it claims that it's going to be doing.
Matt: Yeah, for sure. It's good to put a fine point on that. Thank you.
Jen: Okay, so one more type of supplement. How many more supplements are we going to be talking about?
Matt: Yeah, let's keep it to one more, because we've talked about a lot already today. So first I want to give honorable mention to a version of the gut cleanse grift that we haven't discussed yet to lead into this one. And that is convincing people they're infested with parasites.
Jen: Oh my gosh. Matt, I feel like if the show notes for this episode, if someone was to read them ahead of time, it's going to be like yogurt enemas, parasite cleanses. This is insane.
Matt: Yeah, it's disgusting. It's disgusting. It's fun though. I like talking about it.
Jen: Okay, tell me more about anti-parasite supplements. This is not something I know a lot about.
Matt: So basically there is a cadre of doctors out there convincing people that they're infested with parasites, which then allows them to be sold a parasite protocol. And I'm sure whenever you hear the word protocol, you're about to spend some serious money on supplements.
Jen: Oh yeah. I'm about to drop some serious green..
Matt: And I'm actually going to let one of those parasite hunting doctors tell us about the symptoms to look out for. If you think you might have parasites.
Soundboard: Is it possible that you've got these parasites lurking in your body? Well, don't worry. I've got three great tips to get rid of parasites in humans. And a lot of the common symptoms of having parasites includes lack of energy and a lot of fatigue, skin rashes, maybe eczema and psoriasis. There could be loud gurgling sounds in the stomach, especially right after you eat is a telltale sign of having parasites. There could be weight loss, yes, but weight gain as well can be related to having parasites as well as irritability and mood changes. Cravings for sweets is very common, and for those of you who grind your teeth at night, and this is common in children as well, can be a sign of having parasites. And I hate to say it, but if you have an itchy behind, that can be parasites as well. Now, here's the thing about parasites is that you could have no symptoms at all, and this can be parasites.
Jen: I just want to summarize. So any symptom could be a cause of parasites, but also no symptoms could be a cause of parasites.
Matt: Yes.
Jen: Okay.
Matt: You said it perfectly.
Jen: Okay, so all symptoms or no symptoms, all mean parasites.
Matt: Yeah. This is a type of logic that I think is just foolproof. It's perfect.
Jen: I mean, it's amazing. It's amazing how she went to all of the symptoms, back to no symptoms, and she did it so well. I was kind of like, okay, no symptoms too. I mean, she did it beautifully.
Matt: Yeah. Do you think we could use this logic in our own lives? Can you get pulled over for speeding? And you could say, officer, actually, me speeding is a sign that I wasn't speeding. Can you just reverse anything?
Jen: I mean, I think that is very not likely to work with most of the Boston cops that would pull me over.
Matt: Yeah, they don't got time for that. So yeah, that's Dr. Janine Bowring talking about the symptoms of potentially having parasites. I actually want to play one more clip from Dr. Janine. This one just makes me laugh because she tries to land some mental gymnastics to convince people about what she's selling. That I think is worth listening to.
Soundboard: Here's a common sign that you need to do a parasite cleanse protocol, and you don't know if you've got parasites or not. Usually the doctor's not testing for parasites, and there's lots of different types of parasites that you can pick up. But do you, at the end of the day when you take your clothes off, see those red lines where it was tight on your body, and that is an indication that maybe you have some bloating happening and that stagnation and those red lines is compromised circulation, compromised lymphatic flow, and that can now compromise your immune system. So maybe that gas and bloating is because of those parasites.
Matt: Your pants are too tight, so you have parasites.
Jen: Oh my gosh, that clip upset me. Oh my gosh. I have so many words wanting to come out of my mouth at one time.
Matt: That's a sign of parasites. Jen, you got to get a protocol for that.
Jen: I have to get a protocol. I need the protocol stat. No, I mean, the idea that doctors don't test for parasites. I mean, yes, doctors would test for parasites under certain circumstances, for sure. Number two, the fact that if your pants are uncomfortable, that that's an automatic sign of parasites feels incredibly wrong and misleading. I hate everything about that clip.
Matt: It's just Occam's razor. If your pants are too tight, the most logical conclusion is that you have parasites.
Jen: Yeah. Or just maybe your pants are uncomfortable and change your pants. That also feels like a possibility.
Matt: No, that sounds more complicated. I don't know. I don't know about that.
Jen: Well, I feel like we should say too that people, human beings can have parasitic infections, and that is not maybe as common in this country as it is in other countries, but if someone was to have a parasitic infection, the treatment would not be a supplement protocol. It would very, very much be an anti-parasitic medication that would be prescribed by the doctor. Because again, I think the other thing that really bothered me about this clip is that she's just using the word parasite very non-specifically. There are many types of parasitic infections and different anti parasitic medications would be necessary depending on the type of parasite one has. But she's not talking about it specifically. Very, very general language used there, which to me is always a red flag.
Matt: Well, actually, she in the video is holding up different pictures of different parasites, not exactly explaining why she's holding them, but if you go to her website where she sells her supplements, you can get all sorts of different supplements based on the type of parasite that you have. But if you look at the supplements, they're like kitchen spices inside of capsules that sell for $50 a bottle. So your point still stands. Yeah.
Jen: Yeah. Well, I think we can kind of clearly say that this is very much a hoax. Yes.
Matt: Yeah. I mean, she's saying you have parasites, but she's not even telling you to go get a stool test and verify that you have that parasite. She's just saying, let's start taking a supplement protocol. So this is very fishy and not research-based. Clearly, and I'm glad you pointed out that parasites do exist. It is a thing that happens. However, this is nowhere near the right course of action for you.
Jen: Absolutely, absolutely. Well, and I think I'm going to just totally make this point again, because I think this is a point that we make a lot on the show, is that I always want people starting with the appropriate professional. If they're experiencing digestive discomfort, I want those people starting with a GI doctor, like a good GI doctor or a dietitian, just like if someone thinks they may have some type of issue with their hormones, I want them starting with an endocrinologist. I don't want them starting with a parasite protocol because I just think that leaves so much space to number one, spend and waste a lot of money unnecessarily. But it also probably lengthens the time between an accurate diagnosis. People can have different digestive conditions that can be very impactful for them, but that's the type of thing that needs to be handled by a professional and not Colon Broom.
Matt: What a PSA. Thank you, Jen. That's very sage advice.
Jen: Yeah.
Matt: Okay. So I'm going to lose a good portion of our listeners who are still with us with this outro, but I'm willing to do it because I know there's going to be a few people who experience an immediate flood of serotonin. So I have a question for you, Jen.
Jen: Okay.
Matt: Do, do, do, do you have it?
Jen: Do I have what?
Soundboard: Guts! Theme Song Plays
Matt: Nutrition for Mortals is a production of Oceanside Nutrition, a real life nutrition counseling practice in beautiful Newburyport, Massachusetts, where we provide individual nutrition counseling, both and online via telehealth. Feel free to learn more about our practice at oceansidenutrition.com. If you want to send in a show idea, you can email us at nutritionformortals@gmail.com or on Instagram at Nutrition For Mortals. If you're digging the show, tell a friend. Maybe give us a nice review on Apple Podcasts if you can. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.
