Wow, did we have an amazing Wednesday Wisdom class with Ed Daily today - April 26, 2023! Ed is the Senior Global Trainer of Product Education for Young Living Essential Oils and we are so blessed to have him share all about the correlation between gut health and brain health. You will be fascinated to learn the connection between these two body systems and how to support each with a healthy diet and incorporating a few key Young Living products to make your life a little easier.
Below is the full video, along with some simple bullet points. I promise that watching the video is well worth your time! Please share with friends who need this knowledge. Together we can empower our friends and family to live in greater health and vitality!
I'm going to do a shameless plug right now too . . .
If you're not a regular participant on Wednesday Wisdom and you're a member of the Royal Dream Team then I HIGHLY recommend that you join us for these weekly online educational zoom classes. Teri Secrest, Elizabeth Rose, and Beverly Banks frequently teach on a different topic of natural health, leadership and skills for growing a Young Living business. You will also hear from other team members and guest speakers. To get a text message reminder with the topic and link to join, simply text the word WISDOM to 719-208-4508. We look forward to seeing you online ðŸ¤
To determine if you GI system needs a little bit of help, here are a few questions to answer:
- Are you getting indigestion often?
- Do you get bloated often?
- Are you sensitive to foods?
- Have you needed many courses of antibiotics?
How many of these can you relate to:
- Were you breastfed for at least a month when you were a baby? If so, that’s a really good thing because breastfeeding sets the GI system up for success later on in life.
- Do you suffer from depression and or anxiety? Researchers are realizing that the microbiome in a person with depression and anxiety is not in great health and may be a leading cause of these conditions.
- Do you suffer from constipation or diarrhea? These are mal-absorption issues in the gut.
- Have you had to use a lot of steroid medications?
- Do you have food allergies?
FUN FACT: Our GI system from your mouth to where you go to the bathroom is about 28 to 32 feet long. There’s a lot of room for things to go really well or also to go really poorly.
FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE
Your gut health is in direct relationship to your neurological health, cardiovascular and endocrine health. When looking at specific issues, modern medicine has its place, although it addresses issues as if looking through a microscope at one problem rather than addressing the body as a whole microbiome.
This is where functional medicine really comes in. We are not a slave to our genetic makeup. It is in deep relationship to the lifestyle you live and the environment that you live in. The good news is that you can bio-hack your way to health and wellness every day by making conscious choices about what you eat and what products you use in your home. When we assimilate and eliminate foods it’s how we digest foods, absorb foods, the excretion and the uptake of nutrients.
The Digestive Process
The process of digesting food actually begins in your mouth. This is why your parents may have told you to “chew every bite 20 times.” Why? Because when you chew food, your body releases Amylase that breaks down carbohydrates. When the food gets to the stomach, pepsin takes over and breaks down proteins. In the Duodenum is where the Bile is added and the result of this is Chyme. Chyme then travels through the small and large intestine and that’s where the nutrients get absorbed. Next is the excretion process.
It’s about time that physicians start looking at gut health as a major culprit of systemic disease in the body. Because, as you can see, gut health is vital for nutrient absorption and processing and utilization of the foods and beverages we consume.
Your Gut Microbiome
The microbiome is a very, very important player in our overall health and wellness. It consists of 100 trillion bacteria. Most of the bacteria are really friendly, some of them are not friendly. Even the unhealthy ones actually have a purpose. Plus, there are 10,000 different species of bacteria.
Your microbiome is a physical barrier to pathogens. It aids in the digestion and absorption of foods. It helps in detoxifying your body. It influences the immune system response. It handles stress, hormones, and lung response. It assist in sleep and it controls the inflammation pathways. WOW!!! Now can you see the importance of having a healthy biome.
For some people, sleep problems and joint pain are indicators that the gut biome needs help. Another indicator is the “silent but deadly toots”. Yes, I’m talking about farts, but the ones that smell really bad! Really smelly farts indicate that the good and bad bacteria might be out of balance, or it could be something more serious like IBS.
Did You Know: Every organ in your body has its own biome. For instance, your skin’s biome is known as strata. Even your heart has a biome. Look up the Human Microbiome Project that NIH developed back in 2008.
Leaky Gut and Leaky Brain
Researchers used to think that the blood brain barrier was impenetrable, meaning that nothing could get through to effect the brain. Now research shows that changes in the biome actually decrease the brain's ability to protect itself from toxins. So when you take care of your gut health (and you win by using our products day in and day out) you're protecting your brain. You're actually protecting yourself and you are protecting one of the most important systems and your body - your brain.
Inflammation
When there is di-ease in the body, the number one culprit is inflammation, plus an acidic condition in the body versus alkaline. So let’s talk about controlling inflammation, free radical damage, and the relationship of inflammation to what happens in the neurological system. In the body we have biochemicals called cytokines. A cytokine is a small protein that affects the behavior of other cells, but not in a good way. The three main cytokines that cause inflammation in the body are known as c-reactive protein, interleukins and tumor necrosis factor (TNF).
NOTE: Inflammation is such an important thing to understand and treat that big Pharma spent 20 BILLION dollars in 2020 developing drugs to control inflammation. The sad fact is, drugs do not take care of the root cause, they just help you feel better for a short time so that you keep coming back for more. In the long run, they make a lot of money off of inflammation.
So what’s the first step in combatting inflammation in a holistic way?
We need to look at what kills the good bacteria and a how to create a healthy microbiome.
1) Antibiotics
Antibiotics decrease the amount of friendly bacteria by up to 35%. To combat the effects of this, you can triple up on taking a probiotic such as Life 9, and eat fermented foods like sauerkraut and kimchi. Go for low carb foods, gluten-free, and healthy fats such as avocados, extra virgin olive oil and sesame oil. You can also triple up on a prebiotic such as MightyPro. Sulferzyme, ICP Daily and Master Formula also include prebiotics.
A helpful essential oil blend for supporting the GI system is DiGize, plus the single oil of Peppermint. An easy application is 2 drops DiGize Vitality and 1 Drop Peppermint Vitality in a capsule and take internally, or doing this same formula and applying to the stomach topically.
NingXia Greens is a unique blend of superfood ingredients, greens, and premium essential oils. Inside each serving, you’ll find 50 fermented whole foods, five varieties of immune-supporting mushrooms, and wolfberry fruit and sprouted leaves from Young Living’s Seed to Seal® farm in Ningxia, China.
2) Harsh Chemical Cleaners
Things like antibacterial soap, bleach, floor cleaner, glass cleaner, etc can be loaded with “acceptable amounts” of each toxin ingredient. However, what happens when you’d multiple harsh chemicals together? It affects your microbiome.
Thieves to the rescue! Young Living came out with an entire line of products based on the Thieves essential oil blend of Clove, Cinnamon Bark, Eucalyptus Radiata, Rosemary and Lemon. This blend supports the body’s natural functions but does not kill the good bacteria. I substitute store-bought products with Young Living’s Thieves Household Cleaner, Mouthwash, Toothpaste, Hand Soap, Dish Soap, Fruit and Veggie Wash, and Hand Sanitizer. I have confidence in knowing that the products are effective for their desired use but will not be harming my microbiome or the atmosphere in my home.
3) Acidic Drinks and Sugar
We talked about processed sugar as being something to lessen or completely take out of your diet. Now let’s touch on carbonated drinks like sparkling water and soda. The CO2 that creates the carbonation in fizzy soda drinks is actually a byproduct of our body exhaling. When you breath in, you breath in Oxygen and when you breathe out, you breath out CO2. When you then drink a beverage with CO2 it is so acidic (around 2.5-3.0 pH) and oxidizing to the cells that the body calls for help! The only defense the body has against that much acid being poured in is to neutralize it with an alkaline substance. So the body pulls minerals - magnesium, potassium, calcium and sodium - to neutralize the acid.
Can you guess what this does? It LEACHES MINERALS from your body. This leads to an acidic condition in the body that is a host for dis-ease, inflammation, and an unhealthy microbiome. I don’t care how much you love soda or are addicted to it, it’s not worth it!!!
Go for clean, filtered water. Try adding Lemon Vitality or Citrus Fresh Vitality or Vitality Drops for flavoring. Enjoy a cup of Vanilla Lemongrass Tea or Spiced Turmeric Herbal Tea. Add 1-2 ounces of NingXia Red to your water or AminoWise to replenish your electrolytes after a workout. And yes, skip the electrolyte drinks with added sugar and food coloring. Most are more oxidizing to the cells of the body than they are healthy and hydrating.
Coffee is another beverage that is acidic (around 4.5 pH) in nature. As with everything in life, we need balance. If you just love coffee or think you need coffee for the caffeine effects, go for 1-2 cups a day. What’s can be even worse than plain black coffee is all the stuff we put in coffee. Sugar, sugar, sugar! Coffee creamers with sugar and milk and preservatives. This combination may taste good but it's very hard for your body to process and can cause an inflammatory response. I enjoy a little douse of organic heavy whipping cream or half and half, with a teaspoon of honey or agave. It's a wonderful flavor balancer and adds just enough natural sweetener to feel like "a hug in a mug".
Alkaline Support
Eating raw vegetables, replenishing the body's supply of alkaline minerals (Mineral Essence and AminoWise are helpful supplements for this) and lessening the amount of acidic foods and beverage we consume is the first start. For added support, like after drinking a cup of coffee, Young Living's Alkaline powder is helpful.
Alkalime helps maintain optimal pH in the stomach with an alkaline blend of biochemical mineral salts, lemon powder, and premium essential oils that also work together to soothe occasional upset stomach. This powder is easy to add to water and take after a cup of coffee to help balance out the pH of the stomach.
The Four Rs to Gut Health
1) Remove
2) Replace
3) Reinoculate
4) Replenish
Let's dive into each one of these and how several of the Young Living products can help you in each area.
1) Remove
Remove the things you are consuming on a regular basis that are not healthy for you. Dairy, Gluten, GMO foods, and sugar are the main culprits. They cause inflammation in the gut and spreads throughout the body.
2) Replace: Once you remove things that do not support your overall health, then you must replace things like enzymes.
Essentialzyme-4 is a great Young Living product to take during meals.
Detoxzyme at night before bed to help the GI track detox and flush out unwanted toxins.
Allerzyme is helpful for a period of time as well for those who have food allergies.
ICP Daily is a convenient supplement for getting enough Fiber daily. This helps to “keep things moving”. It tastes great when added to water, includes essential oils and is a pre-biotic!
3) Reinoculate
We have to give back to those friendly bacteria that are in our gut.
Life 9 in Young Living’s solution for getting enough probiotics. It incudes 9 stains of probiotics that do a very good job of repopulating the friendly bacteria in your microbiome. It is recommended to take at bedtime.
TIP: don’t trust most brands of yogurt to have enough probiotics in them.
4) Replenish
Intaking healthy doses of Zinc, avocados, wild-caught salmon for its B-5 content, Omega-3 (2-3 grams a day also supports cognitive health, heart health, and cardiovascular and neurological health), not only supports healthy gut mucosa and wards off conditions such as leaky gut, but they help maintain a microbiome that optimally metabolizes the good stuff you put in on a daily basis.
- Master Formula is a full-spectrum supplement that provides vitamins and minerals that can help support bone density and health, brain function, cellular protection, digestive health, energy levels, eye health, heart health, immune support, and skin health. Master Formula’s food-based ingredients are delivered in three ways for a synergistic complex that supports digestive health, helps neutralize free radicals in the body, and provides gut flora-supporting prebiotics.*
- OmegaGize³® combines the power of omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D3, and CoQ10 along with essential oils to support normal brain function and normal heart, eye, and joint health.*
- Magnesium: You need about 200 milligrams a day! Now this is found in Mineral Essence, plus you can get it from leafy greens and nuts such as almonds, pistachio, Brazilian nuts, pecans, walnuts, etc.
- Super B: B Vitamins support our mood, cognitive function, cardiovascular health and energy levels. TIP: I recommend taking it before noon since it has a rather energizing effect and may keep you awake at night.
- MindWise™ supports normal cardiovascular and cognitive brain health using CoQ10, ALCR, and GPC ingredients, along with fruit juices and extracts, turmeric, and premium essential oils.
- Glutamine: In order for your mind and your heart to be strong and vibrant, you also need things like glutamine (not glutamate or glutathione - those are different). Glutamine comes from cruciferous vegetables such as spinach, kale, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, and papaya. We need about five grams a day!
- Glutamate: When it comes to healthy brain function, glutamate helps with cognition, learning and memory, and it's abundant in the healthy brain. Do you think if there's poor GI health that a lot of glutamate is present, or not? In fact, one study I read recently said that they did postmortem on 100 patients with Alzheimer's, and glutamate was almost non-existent in the brain. Wow! To boost your glutamate levels, try NingXia Greens.
Is This Helpful?
I hope this blog and the video training from Wednesday Wisdom with Ed Daily is helpful for you. If you would like to schedule a wellness phone call to create your own personalized wellness plan, our team is here to help! We love sharing valuable tips that are easy and cost-effective to incorporate into your daily health regiment. Please reach out if we can be of service to you, and we look forward to connecting again soon!
To Your Health,
Teri Secrest and Elizabeth Rose
Phone: 719-502-1017
Email: Teri@TeriSecrest.com
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