Our gut is our immune system. We can't stress that enough.

Take your gut seriously! Listen to find out why it's so important. Here's the transcript: Debbie 

Today, we're gonna talk about our microbiome. In other words, our gut.

Wendy 

Our gut flora!  And everything it affects and everything it's connected to in our health and our wellness.

Debbie 

Right. Because you may have heard this statistic already, but gut bacteria out numbers are human cells 10 to one.

Wendy 

Whoa! So, we're made up of more bacteria than--

Debbie 

--we are human. Yeah.

Wendy

That’s pretty wild.

Debbie

I remember when I first heard that, somebody said something like if aliens came down and scanned us, we would come up as bacteria, not humans. So that's why we have to take care of it, right? Because if that's how much is in us, it's obviously ruling our bodies. It's probably, you know, more of a ruler to our bodies than our brains are!

Wendy 

Right! And I think that as we understand our bodies even more, because I still, as I said, to many people, we're still at the infancy of really understanding our body. I mean, science just keeps understanding and keeps uncovering. And the microbiome is something that Hypocrites said it a long time ago, when our guts off, the rest of us is off, but we're just now catching up to that wisdom.

Debbie 

That's right. The science is catching up. It's like we knew about it, because we say with that gut feeling.  You know, go for the gut. We know--we know this intuitively. But science is finally on the bandwagon. So how do you know that if your microflora is off, I mean, I think probably a majority of us have somewhat of an imbalance in our gut. But others have a lot more--they're uncomfortable or they're sick, or they don't feel well, you know, every once in a while or daily because of it, and they don't even know what it is. So, how do we know that we can say, oh, that's the gut?

Wendy 

Well, let's start by the obvious--I mean, the obvious is our gut. So if we have any kind of gut pain, or gas or bloating or constipation, or diarrhea or anything directly connected, we know that there's something off there that we need to address. So digestive issues is number one, for sure.

Debbie 

Yeah, a lot of people are diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome. And that's sort of been kind of off the charts is “okay, that's sort of a, an umbrella to other problems.” It's not necessarily a diagnosis anymore. But what else is there? It's a lot of people have mental, there's some mental issues going on because of our gut flora.

Wendy 

Yeah. Everything from brain fog, and being indecisive to Alzheimer's, and dementia.

Debbie 

Schizophrenia.

Wendy 

Yep. And Depression.

Debbie 

Depression. Absolutely.

Wendy 

And we're taking a lot of pills. For the depression, when there could be a connection to the gut--we get our gut microflora, under wraps.

Debbie 

But that's it, there's also diagnosis of OCD and bipolar disorder, and they've been diagnosed off the charts lately. And I have a feeling that a lot of that has to do with our gut flora. Not that you don't have those genes. You may have the genes, but they might not be disruptive to your life if you had a healthy gut. So think about that. If you know someone or you are suffering from some kind of mental problem that's really affecting your life. Trust your gut.

Wendy 

The next one is our mineral deficiencies or vitamin deficiencies. If our gut is off, what is the possibility therefore of us not actually absorbing all of the yummy, delicious, nutritious food that we're actually putting into our body? So, we're always saying, you know, you can eat the perfect foods, and not absorb them and still be off and not be well. So yeah, we are what we eat, but we are more of what we actually absorb.

Debbie 

Good one--good way to put it.