Probiotics, whether to take them or not.
I'm Dr. Carrie Lam. This is Dr. Michael Lam. We're here to talk about
whether it's good for you to take natural probiotics,
through food or through supplements,
and how it's beneficial for people with Adrenal Fatigue or not.
How are probiotics play into part for someone suffering with Adrenal Fatigue?
Well, first of all, all of us have probiotics in the body
and we need the probiotics in order to have a healthy body.
Probiotics is part of microbiome which is actually 10 times more, or 100 times more
in terms of microorganisms in the body and is responsible
for making a lot of the precursors to our neurotransmitters and hormones.
In fact, the gut is called the second brain for that purpose
and it sends precursors to the brain neurotransmitters
to be actually made, such as human serotonin.
The problem with Adrenal Fatigue is that when the body is
a weak and stressed up state where the cortisol is down and the adrenals are not functioning well,
there's a process of slowing down
and when the gut slows down, then the probiotic tend to be affected, you see?
That is kind of the biggest issue that we have to deal with, the balancing of the probiotics.
Right, so balancing of the probiotics with the prebiotics
and the gut bacteria that are already in your gut. It's very important.
We have three different types of general systems of foods that can give you probiotics.
The sour types of foods,
the fermented types of foods and the cultured types of foods.
One example of the sour type of food is apple cider vinegar.
Do you ever drink apple cider vinegar or recommend it for your clients?
Yeah. Everything that you mentioned is quite good.
Depending on the person's constitution, the state of weakness,
apple cider vinegar can be helpful but oftentimes it can actually make things worse.
Everyone is different. Bear in mind, I deal with cases of clients that are really weak,
so these are not your healthy people that are doing well and go running marathons already.
In this type of sub group of people who have Adrenal Fatigue,
the weaker you are, the more careful you have to be, even with probiotics because,
you know, probiotics does have issues especially if it is too strong.
People think, "Oh no, stress..." - What kind of issues?
Well, you can get constipation.
It can even trigger adrenal crashes.
It can have more bloating.
Sometimes it can even cause diarrhea.
You know, it has paradoxical effects
and the common misconception,
and this is going off chat a little bit from what you were saying about the apple cider vinegar,
the common misconception is that the more strain,
the higher the intensity, the better but it's actually not true.
Right. Sometimes the count, you look at the count of bacteria in there,
that doesn't necessarily mean it's better because
when you have more bacteria,
sometimes the people with Adrenal Fatigue are not able to handle that metabolic load
that the bacteria are going to be processing and digesting and putting out.
Your body has to deal with that metabolic loading also.
Yeah, and most probiotics, they go through a process of freeze dry or encapsulation.
In that process, many die. If you have high strain
or high volume, billions and billions,
there is no use to take billions and billions of dead...
Yeah, they're not even alive. - They're not even alive.
The key is to match and the key is to have different strains at different times to rotate.
Our program is involved with giving people
very, very good health support gut-wise but we do it in a way
that does not aggravate and make the body worse by giving them more load and that is the key.
The other way, if you don't want to do supplemental probiotics, is to do it naturally.
We already talked about the apple cider vinegar,
but there are fermented foods like kimchi, which is a Korean dish,
or Natto or Miso which are Japanese dishes,
and if you like German, it would be like Sauerkraut.
You have to be careful. Even though fermentation is very good,
if you have a concurring candida
infection, sometimes, not all the time, the candida can get worse.
That's the fermented types of foods that could give you probiotics.
The cultured ones, cultured dairy like yogurt, if it's Greek,
and goji yogurt or even aged cheeses that are raw
and not pasteurized might have good probiotics also.
Yeah. Just make sure that the yogurt is not sweetened unnecessarily
and then, you know, you should be able to titrate up a little bit.
Overall, the yogurt and the probiotic is a good thing for the body. Don't discount that.
The question is, if you are weak, if you are sensitive, if you have gut issues,
you don't just jump right into it.
I think that the important part is to fix the adrenals
and allow the system to kind of settle down and find its own level.
If you need the probiotic, you can always add the probiotics and prebiotics and et cetera.
There are many ways to do it, but you have to do it in a way that helps the body
and not make the body work harder.
That's all you need to know about probiotics. We're here to help you on your health journey.