Far 2 Fabulous

Probiotics vs. Prebiotics: Unlocking the Secrets to a Healthy Gut

June 27, 2024 • Julie Clark & Catherine Chapman • Episode 25

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Episode 25
Curious about how to transform your gut health? Ever wondered if there's more to gut bacteria than just digestion? Join us on this fascinating episode of Far Too Fabulous as we kick things off with a deep dive into the Netflix phenomenon "Hack Your Health." Inspired by the show’s spotlight on the gut microbiome, we share our personal experiences, including Catherine's struggles with gut issues post-marathon. We break down the essential differences between prebiotics and probiotics, using the vivid analogy of a garden where prebiotics act as the fertilizer and probiotics are the flourishing flowers. Discover how running impacts gut health and why maintaining a diverse microbiome is key to overall wellness.

The conversation takes an unexpected turn as we discuss the collaboration between Tim Spector and Marks and Spencer's for gut shots, raising eyebrows over their sugar content. We compare these trendy products to traditional options like Yakult and Actimel, highlighting the benefits and drawbacks. Our exploration doesn't stop there; we delve into the crucial role of fermented foods in traditional diets and the damaging effects of modern antibacterial products. From the resilience of gut bacteria to the challenges posed by acid-reducing medications, we emphasize the importance of prioritizing gut health to prevent common issues like asthma and allergies. Tune in to learn how you can nurture your gut flora for a healthier, happier life!

For the clean 15 and dirty dozen (UK): https://www.pan-uk.org/dirty-dozen/

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For more information about Julie Clark Nutrition, click HERE
For more information about Catherine Chapman, click HERE

We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Far Too Fabulous hosted by Julie and.

Speaker 2:

Catherine, join us on a mission to embrace your fabulousness and redefine wellness. Get ready for some feistiness, inspiration, candy chats and humour as we journey together towards empowered well-being. Let's dive in. Hello, hello and welcome back. Thanks for joining us again. So today we're going to start off with me having watched Hack your Health on Netflix. I am sure loads of you have seen it. It was really massively interesting. I really enjoyed it and I actually I really loved the how they visually put that together. So if you haven't seen it, do go and watch it. It's really really good. That led me to going to accost Julie in choir after choir and wanting to know what was the difference between pre and pro biotics. What do I take? When do I take it, why do I take it, how do I take it? And so we thought, if I was a bit confused about this, everybody else would be as well, and I'm and Julie, I'm sure that's your experience as well, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

yeah, so definitely. Lots of my clients had also watched this program, so then I had to go and watch it, of course, and now I can't remember if, because you know what it's like when you know stuff, you don't necessarily take in all the information because you already know that stuff. So I can't remember what they said on that program about pre and probiotics. Can you remember anything about it?

Speaker 2:

just the terms came up, just the terms and also actually I've just remembered that was almost a thing that made me come and ask you because I had been suffering, if you remember, with with slightly changed habits and I wondered if it was a mixture of having just added some progesterone or that I was still in the kind of come down from the marathon and what it was that might have been upsetting my system and what it was that I could do to kind of reset it and bring it back again. And and I wondered if pre and probiotics were the the thing, and if they were, which one and what do I do with it?

Speaker 1:

yes, that's right, and I did. I recommended you get a specific one, didn't I? And? And did you get it? And did you take it? And did it work? I did it.

Speaker 2:

I did a course of 10 days, which has definitely settled it. I don't think it's completely gone back to normal. So I don't know whether another course of 10 days, because you, when we've talked about this before, you've talked about either doing it in sort of like an acute lump, yeah, or doing it regularly.

Speaker 1:

So I I went for an acute lump, and that's the technical term, ladies and gents, yeah, so it'll be interesting to see yeah, the thing is with running is that we're going off on a tangent now, but the thing is with running, especially marathons, is lots of people have gut issues, which you probably had experienced that with your group of ladies we had so many conversations about poo.

Speaker 2:

It was unbelievable. Run runners. Trots was definitely a conversation that we had frequently, yeah, especially with the gels and things trying to find the right gels.

Speaker 1:

Yeah exactly, and because it puts your body in fight and flight, don't forget. So that has an impact as well. So, anyway, the program hack your health was looking at the gut and the microbiome and the impact it has on your health. That was the, you know, the, the main reason for the program, and it was done in a very, very interesting way because it was almost got a little bit of comedy involved, didn't it? It was so, and the animations that they used and everything were really good, and I I've recommended to lots of my clients because I think it was a very simple explanation of how the gut works. So that was good.

Speaker 1:

But, to answer your question, what are pre and probiotics? So these came up on the on the program when they were talking about the gut microbiome, which. This is how I think of it. I think it's like a garden that you've got in your mostly in you, in the last few meters of your lower bowel is where all these bacterias are, and we have ones that really help us and they really do help us and ones that don't, and modern society, in the way we live, impacts the balance between those.

Speaker 1:

So when we're looking at our garden, we want to make sure that we've got lots of different variety of flowers, not too many weeds some weed is okay, but lots of different flowers and this is what all these bacteria are, and they impact things like your ability to process cholesterol, how your body makes it serotonin, how your body breaks down food, how it gets rid of waste, how it impacts your blood pressure, your weight, your mood. There's so many things that it's linked to your immune system is a massive one there, so it's incredibly important and I run lots of tests looking at the gut microbiome. The test that they had on that program actually is very similar to the one that I use, and it's really good for you to see what your garden's like and then compare you to a healthy range of people or people that might have symptoms like you to see oh, we've got too many of that weed or too many of that flower and we need to balance things out yeah, balance things out so amazing.

Speaker 2:

So what is prebiotics?

Speaker 1:

yeah, so a prebiotic is going back to this garden. Uh, analogy, the prebiotic is like the fertilizer for the soil. So if you imagine that you've got, you're like, right, I've got loads of daisies, but I've got no daffodils. I need to put the daffodils into my gut. I'll take a probiotic, which is the flower, I'll put the daffodils in, but I haven't sorted out the soil. Are the daffodils going to thrive in that environment? No, julie, they're not. They're not.

Speaker 1:

It's a good analogy. They might, but they might not, because if you're coming out, it depends on where you are with your lifestyle. If you have things like you use a lot of chemicals, I think we, we might, I think we might have to talk about chemicals going into our body at some point. But if we use chemicals, um, that have an impact on that soil medicines that do, yeah, foods that do then that soil may not be able to take that daffodil, yeah, whatever flower that we wanted to put in there for it to grow, yeah. But if we put the prebiotic in, we're effectively fertilizing that soil, making it really good so that when we then plant the daffodils they're going to take okay, they're in the right environment perfect.

Speaker 2:

So we've got the prebiotics. Is the soil? Yep, the probiotics is the daffodils. Are the flowers? Yeah, yeah, fantastic. Do we need to sort out the prebiotics first? Do we need to sort the?

Speaker 1:

soil out first? That's a really good question and it depends a lot on what's going on with your health. So for some people they can just take probiotics and it works really well and it calms their symptoms down. Other people, it doesn't work because you put the flowers in there and they come straight out the system because they can't stay there, or there's so many weeds because the diet is full of sugar or you've had antibiotics or whatever it is there. These opportunist, uh bad bacteria can just go in and thrive if the ph level is off. Um, that makes a difference. So, yeah, that last part of the bowel. You want that environment to be really well. So the best way to do it is with food, with food.

Speaker 2:

No way you don't say fantastic, so so we're sorting out our, we're sorting out our soil. Yep, what do we, what do we eat?

Speaker 1:

so we need fiber. So fiber is the fertilizer for the soil in our gut okay so there are some specific fibers that are particularly good in foods like jerusalem artichoke, leeks, onions, garlic but any vegetable or whole grain is going to give you some fiber, and the fiber is key that's so interesting.

Speaker 2:

so because I mean, often, when we think about pre and probiotics and I know that I'm going to upset Julie now, if you could see her, like steam's going to start coming out of her ears we think of things like Yakult, things like Atmel or you know, other things are available. This is what we, this is certainly what I think of?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the one that I've got the biggest issue with at the moment is you know the zoe. Do you know the zoe thing? Yes, yeah, which there are some good aspects of that, you know. It involves wearing a continuous glucose monitor, understanding how your body reacts to food. It does a gut test, looking at your microbiome. There are some good elements of it. Uh, I'm not the biggest fan, but I won't go into the reasons why right now. But the the guy, what's his name? Tim Spector, is it? Oh, yes, yeah, yeah. He has partnered with Marks and Spencer's to do these, these gut shots. And what is the number one ingredient in those? Do you think sugar? Sugar? It's about six teaspoons of sugar. Now, the trouble is is, when we're looking at the soil and we're looking at the plants there, the sugar is going to disrupt your soil fertilizer, yeah, and it's going to feed the weeds.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So why on earth would you want to put that in a product that's supposed to support your gut health? No that's crazy. Please tell me why. Why Tim, why?

Speaker 2:

If you want to answer, Tim, we'd love to know, and there's no need for it.

Speaker 1:

I don't know why they put it. And it's the same with Yakult and it's the same with Actamal. They've got very small amounts of bacteria in them, yeah, and a ton of sugar, yeah. No, I haven't even got the words. I can't even get the words out and have I confused things.

Speaker 2:

The Yakult, the Actam, these things are these probiotics?

Speaker 1:

they are.

Speaker 2:

They're probiotics, so these are, these are the things that we are putting in to try and sort of sort that balance out yeah, and we would have normally have had these in our diet in quite abundant amounts.

Speaker 1:

Yes, how can we get these in our diet? Yeah, because the way that we would have preserved things in the past would have used fermenting, and it's fermenting it gives us the bacteria. We wouldn't have pasteurized our milk, so our milk would have had bacteria in it. Okay, so if we think about all, all nations around the world will have some type of fermented product that is their thing yeah so you've got sauerkraut it's a german thing, but you know there are lots of countries that that use sauerkraut as well.

Speaker 1:

but yeah, that's. But you know there are lots of countries that use sauerkraut as well. But yeah, that's how we would have preserved things before fridges before you know we can pasteurize things. We kill off the bacteria and then you think about all the other things we do in our clean environment. Antibacterial washing up liquid is a problem Because that goes into our gut and that's like killing everything. You know that is a problem because that goes into our gut and that's like killing everything. Yeah, you know that's that's killing that's putting.

Speaker 2:

That's putting weed killer on our flowers. Yeah, so all, yeah, all of the again back to that chemicals thing. Isn't it all of the hand washes, the hand gels? Yeah yeah, steam's just come out of her hair ears again but it's things that you don't necessarily think about.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but these things are like, meant to, in the farming industry, kill the bugs. Yeah, but they kill the bugs in us as well and we need some of those bugs, so it becomes a bit of an issue. So that's clearing out the flowers in our garden, yeah, yeah, and when I run stool tests on people, there are massive proportions of flower varieties that are completely missing, and we know that if big groups are missing, they link to things like asthma, for example, or allergies like asthma, for example, or allergies. If there's a group of specific bacteria that are missing in those people, they have a very high incident of inflammatory issues.

Speaker 2:

Oh, isn't that interesting. So if they had a test and or if they were experiencing specific symptoms, that's something they could do. They could go and have a, have a test and see whether they were missing. That big group of you can't see me doing my bunny ears, but flowers my yeah, exactly yeah.

Speaker 1:

When I spoke on my solo podcast episode about testing, yeah, I explained about some of this as well. But yeah, I think that for general health maintenance, we have to know what's going on in our gut.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's so interesting, isn't it? How on earth does it even survive to get that far down the gut? That's that that boggles my mind as it goes through meters and meters of gut yeah, it's.

Speaker 1:

It's a good question, but the thing that you've got remember is that bacteria are very resilient. Yeah, and we know this, because if we get a bacteria in us that is unpleasant, like h pylori or um c difficile, yeah, it really destroys um the balance in the gut and it can with heart. It can get past the acid in the stomach. That's another thing. Right, the acid in our stomach is supposed to protect us against the bacteria that aren't good. Yeah, the ones that are good, they know how to get around that, but how many people do we know on acid reducing medications?

Speaker 2:

oh yeah yeah, anyone that's on any medications full stop yeah, so the acid.

Speaker 1:

And when you're stressed, you don't have the acid. Yeah, so when we're looking at the gut, we you know I spend a lot of my time, as you know, catherine, looking at this, this side of someone's health, because it's the key to everything yeah, it really.

Speaker 2:

It really does seem like actually the place that we need to start and and often it's not that way is.

Speaker 1:

It's often the last thing that people do yeah, yeah, I think that we don't tend to think about it unless we've got a problem. And then if you've got a gut problem, you know it. It's really unpleasant, it impacts your life. You know, I've had so many clients come to me who cannot go out without knowing where all the toilets are. Yeah, how long it's going to take them to go, to get to that place, how close they are to the toilet. And then you've got the opposite end, where you can't go, and we all know I think everybody's had that feeling when you can't go, you feel rotten, don't you? Yeah, feel?

Speaker 2:

rotten if you can't go to the toilet. So yeah, what? So obviously we're gonna make sure that we're eating these. These oniony looking. When you were talking I was just just had pictures of onions in my head oniony looking, fibrous things to sort the soil out. We're gonna add our things like kimchi um, sauerkraut, kombucha, yeah all of those sorts of things, pickles and things.

Speaker 1:

Uh live yogurts.

Speaker 2:

We're making you hungry julie, I can hear your tummy my tummy is rumbling just talking about food.

Speaker 1:

That's the power of the body, right? Yeah, obviously my brain's gone. Oh yeah, I like those foods. Signal, signal the system.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, her pre and probiotic garden is like on fire at the moment. What other things should we? Could we we don't like the word, should really. No, um, could we do on on a daily basis to make sure that, uh, our gut is as healthy as we can make it?

Speaker 1:

so eating those vegetables are really key. Lots of variety there. Getting the fiber in, keeping the sugar low, yes, getting the chemicals out that are going to impact that gut. That includes non-organic food. So we've got to weigh up. Um, I always look at the list online for the uh clean 15 and the dirty dozen. Are you aware of that? Oh, no, okay, so I can't think of the organization. I'd have to put the link in the show.

Speaker 2:

The link in the show notes yeah, but there's.

Speaker 1:

There's an organization in this country that looks at the worst offenders for pesticide uptake. Yeah, that's called the. So the clean 15 are the one, the good ones and the dirty dozen are the 12 most pesticide filled fruits and vegetables in this country so if you so, what I do is I look at the clean 15 and I buy those non-organic, yeah, and then the dirty dozen. I try my best to source organic versions of those.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because that makes a difference. Yeah, and the same for antibacterial things and stuff. But there is a good, a good reason to use pre and probiotic supplements as well. Yeah, so I do in my smoothie. I have a one that includes both. Okay, just to keep things going over. If I'm going overseas at all, I always take my probiotics, because that's going to help help pour everything yeah, yeah so it's not that those things are completely not worth taking, but they're not a substitute for a good diet.

Speaker 2:

No absolutely, and do you take that in your smoothie most days?

Speaker 1:

yeah, I probably have a smoothie, say four times a week. Yeah, so it's just a powder that I I put in there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting and we're just very briefly, because we know that things like antibiotics and we talk about pesticides, but we hadn't actually said the word antibiotics they, they knock things out, they clear everything they're anti the bacteria and sometimes we need those.

Speaker 1:

But if we know that they knock everything out, you can put your probiotics back in again. Yeah, with eating your prebiotics, then that can that can.

Speaker 2:

Obviously the antibiotics don't necessarily know what they're trying to knock out. They just knock everything out.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, and a lot of people will take antibiotics for one thing and then a week later they come down with another illness because they've also wiped out their immune system in that area.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, no, that's really interesting, and what we will actually do is perhaps put those links into our Far Too Fabulous Facebook group so that you can go and have a look at it in there and carry on the discussion, because, I mean, this is endless. We have to end it now. Yes, yes, we do. However, this is an endless topic. It's an endless discussion. So if you want to carry on talking with us, please come and join us over in our facebook group, and we would, we would love to talk to you there yeah, I'm happy to answer any questions about this subject, so I am very, very passionate about it and I know a lot about it and this won't be the last you hear about it.

Speaker 1:

No, definitely not what joy, fantastic.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you again soon, goodbye. Thank you for keeping us company today.

Speaker 1:

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Speaker 2:

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Speaker 1:

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Speaker 2:

Thursday morning. Make it a fabulous week and we'll catch you in the next episode.