SIBO and skin issues with Dr Michael Traub - Ep 53_en (auto-generated)
[Music] welcome to the healthy gut podcast with Rebecca Coombs the place where you can learn how to achieve a happy healthy gut here's what's coming up on today's show welcome to episode 53 of the healthy gut podcast today we're joined by dr.
Michael Traub dr.
Traub graduated from National College of naturopathic medicine in 1981 he was board-certified in 2007 by the American Board of naturopathic oncology and is medical director of La Caille Health Center and Hawaii integrative oncology in kahla Kona Hawaii dr.
Taub served as president of the American Association of naturopathic physicians from 2001 to physician of the Year award he is the author of essentials of dermatological assess and integrated with therapeutics he is an avid amateur triathlete and has practiced meditation and non-duality for over 40 years today we're talking about the impact that the health of your gut can have on your skin we talk about the gut skin access and why common conditions like acne rosacea psoriasis eczema and skin cancer can be a sign that you have SIBO or another underlying gut issue we also talked about what we should be treating first the skin or the gut or SIBO if you have it as someone that suffered terribly from a horrific acne for so many years in my teens I really am very passionate about this topic because I know it firsthand what impact poor skin or skin that makes you feel less than your best can have on you so I hope you enjoy today's episode with dr.
Michael Rob welcome to the healthy gut podcast dr.
Michael tribe it's wonderful to have you on the show today thank you about Rebecca it's beautiful to be here with you and we're going to be talking all about SIBO and skin and something that I have personally lived with for many many years skin issues and I'm so fascinated about how the health of our gut can often be displayed on our skin but before we get sort of started on that topic I'd love to talk about how you got into naturopathic medicine and and how you find yourself to be we know working in beautiful Hawaii today and and really helping people with digestive issues well my father was a dermatologist my mother was a nurse so I grew up wanting to be a doctor and unfortunately I grew up in Southern California and I had a very standard American diet and I developed really severe acne as a teenager and it really affected me it made me very kind of inhibited and self-conscious and it was very ironic because my father was a dermatologist and he sent me to his partner who basically used every treatment available at that time to try to help including giving me tetracycline that which caused my teeth to get discolored and giving me x-ray therapy which led to many skin cancers later in life and none of it really helped but the good thing was that in my last year of high school I fell in love really for the first time and just the beauty of having somebody who cared for me and who I love deeply really seemed to help me and my skin cleared up and so I credit her with the cure to my hat so Wow then we went off to college to different colleges and our relationship ended because we were apart and in my first year at university I was premed I got involved with a group of people who were trying to go to anti-war protests to the you know for the vietnam war was still going on then and and keep them from getting violent you know it was kind of ironic when peace protests would get violent so i kind of jumped in with them and did that and then we plan to do an act of civil disobedience to protest the war and got arrested on purpose and that in ultimately affected my ability to get into medical school as I had to explain you know any convictions on my record and at the time I didn't think it was going to hurt me because I thought it was a evidence of my humanitarian values and so forth but I was very naive and the medical school applications didn't see that that way so the friend my friends were many of them were vegetarians and eating pretty healthy and so at that time my my diet began to change and ultimately I found out about naturopathic medical school and decided to go there and when I first started there was this common concept that food combining was very important and that have you ate this with that it wasn't gonna digest well and I got it kind of got caught up in being concerned about that to the to the extent that it began to affect my digestion and I began to have you know symptoms of what we would call irritable bowel syndrome where I would have discomfort and bloating and it affected my bowel movements and so that was kind of my introduction to having gut issues and finally it didn't take me too long but I figured out that the problem was not what I was eating what foods I was combining really wasn't the issue it was how I was feeling I'm you know about my food when I sat down to eat it and the worry that was affecting my gut so I let that idea go and started just sitting down and blessing my food and being relaxed and meditating for a few minutes and I could eat whatever I wanted again and I was fine so that actually you know was a real lesson for me about how much our psyche illogical state can affect our digestion and from then on you know i-i-i I was beginning to meditate and practice yoga which I've continued to do all my life and I really haven't had any significant gut issues from that time so I'd like many people who have an interest in SIBO or digestive disorders I'm you know that's that's the extent of my experience and but as a doctor of course I've seen many many people who have suffered from what I used to think was irritable bowel syndrome and I knew it was stress-related and I would work with them with their diet that we didn't always get the kind of results that you know one would want and so about four years ago I started hearing about this condition and it got caught my interest I was very impressed with the people I was learning from like dr.
C Becker and dr.
Sandberg Lewis in Portland and it made sense that there was this underlying you know imbalance in the flora of the small intestine that was causing these GI symptoms and so I started recognizing this in my patients and my initial experience with treating people was phenomenal I mean these were people who had you know long-standing gut issues and by testing them diagnosing them with SIBO and treating them you know they felt better than they had in many many years and so that was very rewarding for me and my patients and unfortunately it kind of gave me a overly optimistic perspective on treating this condition because I've subsequently found down that found out that it's not only common but and and underlies the majority of irritable bowel syndrome cases but it's it's a chronic condition and it takes time with most people to manage the symptoms to the point where they are no longer a problem and I know that in your own history I think you are fortunate to be able to recover relatively quickly and so I think however that in my experience with patients that's the that's the minority and that in general requires multiple courses of treatment and and working with the diet and you know the other aspects of care that are needed in order to really get a full recovery so that's kind of my story and my experience with treating see both my my focus in my practice is actually oncology I still have a primary care practice and I'm very interested in dermatology as a result of my you know father's career but because of my expertise in dermatology I've focused to a certain extent on the this connection between the gut and the skin and that's I think primarily what we're here to talk about today it is and something that I lived with a lot of skin issues in my younger years and I now can see that there was a very strong correlation between what was happening in my gut and what was happening on my skin so can we can we just sort of talk about how that occurs like is the health of our gut mirrored on our skin it is I don't think that it's necessarily as simple as that because the underlying immune dysfunction of many of these skin conditions that have a connection with SIBO is complicated it's not it's not just straightforward it's it's complex so I think that to go back a little bit it was almost a hundred years ago but back in the 1930s that there were two well-known dermatologists their name was were John Stokes and Donald Pillsbury and they actually proposed a gastrointestinal mechanism for the overlap between psychological states like depression and anxiety and skin condition conditions such as acne and they they thought that emotional states might alter the normal intestinal flora what we now call the microbiota and that it might increase the permeability of the intestine you know what we commonly called leaky gut and that this could contribute contribute to systemic inflammation and now many aspects of this gut-brain skin unifying theory have been validated and the role of the intestinal microbiome and oral probiotics to to mediate the systemic inflammation and oxidative stress and blood sugar control and the content of fats in tissues and even mood have really important implications in acne and in other skin conditions just taking acne as an example there's a kind of a vicious cycle that can be established between psychological distress whether it be worry or depression in combination with a high-fat diet and processed foods that don't have much fiber that can cause alterations to the gut motility and to the profile of the bacteria in the gut and this can lead to a loss of the normal biofilm sometimes that can then cause the intestinal permeability and allow toxins to get access to the blood the blood and that can increase the burden of inflammation and oxidative stress and in those who are genetically susceptible to acne this kind of cascade of events can increase the likelihood of then having the excess oil in the oil glands produced and making acne worse and causing additional psychological distress so it becomes a vicious cycle and so we we know that probiotics and antimicrobial agents can play a role in cutting cutting off this cycle at the gut level and that way we can address acne by treating this disruption of the gut mm I wish doctors had known about that when I was going through this I'd developed acne at 11 and probably by the time I turned 12 I had terrible acne it was all over my face neck chest arms and all over my back so you know literally half my body was covered in very cystic acne and the very common treatment and it still seems to be today that I was put on multiple rounds of antibiotics by the doctors and nothing worked and like you say there was the enormous amount of psychological stress that goes with it I was at an all-girls school here in Melbourne Australia and you know anything that sets you apart is great cause for bullying so I was bullied just horrendously because of my skin which makes it worse and then I would you know eat junk food because I felt so bad about myself and I'd gone eat the junk food and then I'd feel worse and I was a really really horrible cycle that lasted for many years until I went on to Roaccutane which is a very powerful drug which did clear up the acne but you know I often wonder what did that do to me after you know basically putting a nuclear bomb inside my body and I and I do hear from people in the SIBO world lots of SIBO patients who often talk about how their acne has really flared up with their SIBO progressing or getting worse or that the SIBO isn't under control and that they're really saying this this flare occurring on their skin so if somebody is in active treatment for SIBO and their acne has really flared up and they don't feel that it is actually improving with their treatment do you know what how would you would suggest that they approach it well I think it's important when you have both the gut issue and a skin issue coexisting and probably contributing to each other that you address both at the same time and that you know the vitamin a derivative that you took for your acne that was effective in is really a wonder drug and is probably the most important drug that's ever been invented for Dermatology because it was it's so effective but it does have potential side effects and it the the main one being that it can cause birth defects and so if young women take it like you and become pregnant the risk of having a baby with congenital problems is really high and so it has to be very carefully prescribed and a woman of childbearing years has to be on two methods of birth control while she's taking it and so it's you know it's a very very effective drug for cystic acne but it's also a very dangerous one so it turns out that before that drug was invented dermatologists were just using high doses of vitamin A and then they found out that you know not only was that effective but if they tweaked it and made a synthetic version of vitamin A that they could patent it as a drug and it was you know be sold as a prescription and make money for the drug company and so that's what happened but when I have somebody who has severe acne I used high-dose vitamin A therapy and it works very well and if it is a woman of childbearing years then I you know make sure that she knows that she cannot under any circumstances become pregnant while she's taking the high-dose vitamin A but it works just as well as the drug and it doesn't seem to have any side effects I've used this safely for many years and so that's my first line therapy for severe acne we've learned is that I'm topical or is that tanco is that indicated it's an it's taken internally yeah and we've learned you know in the last 15 years or so that diet does play a huge role in the causation of acne and we know that milk products are probably the primary driver of acne and that sugar simple carbohydrates are also a very important driver of the underline hormonal and inflammatory disturbances that are going on with acne so you know the diet definitely needs to be addressed too and it you know if a person has SIBO they're already avoiding you know formidable carbohydrates so that helps mmm definitely and it's so interesting you say that because I was following that very standard Western diet of low-fat high-carb I had a very sweet tooth in those years so lots of sugar and you know I was I didn't really like meat so I was you know I didn't eat a lot of meat we ate a reasonable amount of vegetables but way too many carbs and sugar for my system and no wonder no wonder I had such terrible acne and at the time I mean this is gosh 30 years ago doctors were saying that diet had no correlation to what was happening on my skin right and all I could do was was do antibiotics so we didn't know in those days that changing my diet would have had such a significant impact whereas I think that these days you know people are more up to speed with the importance that diet plays it's interesting I had a lady you know I put always put a call out for questions and whenever I'm interviewing somebody and a lady wrote to me saying that her daughter was having a lot of skin issues but she had she just could not kick the sugar so if someone's sort of listening and they're thinking oh my gosh that it's the you know sugar okay but they feel like they just can't kick it do you have any advice on how to move away from the evil white stuff have you ever had a relationship with somebody who you really love but it was not a healthy relationship yes oh I talked to my patients about breaking up with sugar you know it there's there's some really nice things about sugar but there's some really nice things about sugar and it's it's almost like breaking up you know it's almost like leaving our relationship that in some ways has been wonderful and in other ways is not so wonderful and so it's it when you and when you break up with somebody usually it's best to just kind of you know completely break loose for a while and have have no no contact and kind of get used to who you are without them and and have a have a you know a cool-down period you know rather than jumping into another relationship and I think that the same thing is true with sugar is that it's best to just really a hundred percent avoid it for a period of time and let your body get used to that and not try to continue to feed the desire for sweet things by using things like stevia and and just you know learn to love the natural sweetness of Whole Foods rather than foods that have been had sweeteners added to them I really love that analogy Michael and it it really sings true for me having had a sweet tooth for you know so much of my life and and in fact coming off the back of my month in the states in Canada where just by virtue of being out of the hot out of my home my kitchen I ate way more carbohydrates and therefore added sugar than I would normally eat and I got back to us Australia feeling pretty ordinary just from having so much processed food because I was constantly flying all over the place so I've gone I'm I am an all-or-nothing person so I'm back into a very strict low carb high fat way of eating and is strictly no sugar because I could see that the sugar it was becoming an issue for me again and I the first few days it's it's really like a relationship breakup I my body was mourning the sugar I was having intense cravings from it someone I live in an apartment complex someone was baking something sweet and I was nearly licking their front door I would smell it like oh my gosh where is that sweetness coming from but the first few days are just the first few days and I knew it was going to I was probably going to have some cravings and I'd just get up and I'd go for a walk and I'd go and drink a glass of water and I'd put a song on and sing really loudly to just distract myself and now that I'm through the worst of that I was chopping up some vegetables the other morning I loved to make a big vegetable stir-fry with some some form of protein in the morning and I bit into one of my pieces of carrot and I was thinking ah how gorgeous and sweet is this carrot and when all of that artificial or processed sugar is out of your diet you know some it's amazing how sweet real food actually can taste yeah and the carrot to me tasted almost like you know a sugary thing because it was so fresh and sweet it was organic it was gorgeous and I'm they're going mmm amazing carrot but I wouldn't I wouldn't taste that if I was still having the sugar in my diet yeah I'd like to I think in my experience when I've broken a habit whether it's sweets or coffee you know it's like many other habits even exercise if you're trying to establish a new habit of exercising regularly it usually takes about three weeks to you know either break a bad habit or start a new one and kind of get free of a bad habit and or have a new habit that's healthy alike exercise be something that it becomes automatic and you know it's not such a struggle to kind of push yourself to to whatever you doing mmm and I'm few weeks into my more rigid way of eating and I it's now just par for the course for me I'm not thinking about sugar I'm not interested in it at all it's not it's not I'm not getting the cravings and it definitely becomes a lot easier and I have a great system that keeps me on track and I tick I like I really need to game a five things for myself and so I have a daily chart and I'd tick it off and that really helps me psychologically to see that I'm taking a step forward every day and so I think finding the thing that works for you if you need if you feel that you need that extra motivation you know ticking off a list or I've got star stickers that I stick on my I've got a big poster that I've put up in my wardrobe so I see it every day and it's literally you know yes you were achieving all of the things you want to do that will keep you moving towards health and that I find very motivational because it's all lit lots of little things rather than one giant thing it's all the little things you do every day that keep you staying healthy or healthier then if you don't do lots of visual things I feel so I tick them off and oh it's like being a school child I give myself a star sticker for good work but it works for me and and I think finding what works for you is a really great way to make a little plug for your your cookbook the first recipe that I made was the one that where you'd use coconut flour to make these little like pancakes mm-hmm and I loved them they were they were they'd had just a faint little sweet flavour I think I used just the tiniest bit of honey but they were they were wonderful and it really doesn't take you know much sweetness to be able to enjoy something like that and not not such yourself back in any way exactly I'd like to talk about some of the other skin conditions and diseases that one might see appear that may also be correlated to compromised gut health so I've talked about acne what are some other things that people may experience well probably the condition that I have clinically seen the most benefit from treating SIBO is rosacea and it used to be that rosacea was called acne rosacea but rosacea really is a totally different conditioned and acne and it should not be confused with no you know acne itself we're not exactly sure what the connection is between SIBO and rosacea but the connection is is is really robust evidence from studies in Europe suggests that SIBO may be present in about 50% of patients who have rosacea and for those listeners who don't know about rosacea it's that condition where patients have really rosy red flushed blushed cheeks and sometimes it affects the nose as well it's mostly affects people who have some Celtic ancestry so there's definitely a genetic predisposition to this and basically the little blood vessels under the skin the capillaries are hyperactive and really prone to dilating when that person is exposed to heat or when they eat hot foods or spicy foods and you know these people often will really flush and blush when they get overheated or even mildly heated or when they eat hot food and so there have actually been some randomized studies that have suggested that the main prescription antibiotic that we use to treat Seba or a fax Imman really leads to significant improvement in over SIBO and these these kinds of results in that study are also supported by other studies of patients with rosacea who were treated for SIBO so that is very very impressive it but unfortunately we don't have a really you know clear understanding of what the connection is between those two conditions another kind of common skin condition is psoriasis and again in one study about ten years ago it showed that 60% of patients with psoriasis had malabsorption versus less than 5% of patients without psoriasis based on a test of malabsorption called the d xylose test and those 60% of patients who had psoriasis were then tested for SIBO with breath tests and 21% of those tested positive and when they were treated with ant refax Imman or another antibiotic it normalized their absorption and it also improved their skin condition so psoriasis is another condition that seems to benefit from treatment of SIBO if that's coexisting gluten free diet also benefits many patients with psoriasis and there is a connection between psoriasis and celiac disease in a small percentage of patients eczema is a you know after acne is probably you know the most common other skin condition that we see between you know besides skin cancers which I'll get to also but with eczema it often starts in infancy and in childhood and it may be that an imbalance of the intestinal microbiota in infancy from antibiotics or from actually paradoxically to clean of an environment where the immune system develops in a particular way because it's not being exposed enough to microorganisms that can that's recognized risk factor for eczema and staph infection also frequently complicates eczema which you know as a bacteria is a normal component of our skin microbiome in small amounts but people who have eczema tend to have overgrowth of staph and it causes secondary infection and then there's a couple other conditions one is verdict area which we commonly refer to as hives and again their percentage of patients with chronic hives have SIBO and improve when that sibylla's test is treated and lastly there is a condition that used to be called scleroderma but now it's referred to as systemic sclerosis this is a very serious systemic condition that causes fibrosis and scarring of multiple organs including the skin and the digestive tract and it leads to malabsorption and it can lead to kind of a pseudo obstruction of the of the intestines and so this results in malnutrition in these patients and it's one of the most common causes of death from this condition in fact people with systemic sclerosis have a 50% mortality rate after eight and a half years if they have malabsorption just from you know being malnourished so these type these patients with systemic sclerosis who have had SIBO diagnosed actually about 50% of these patients have SIBO - so the eradication of z-bo in these patients has also led to significant improvement in their GI symptoms hey guys do you feel completely overwhelmed when it comes to figuring out what you can eat that's suitable for a SIBO diet I know that I felt so overwhelmed at the start of my cebra journey and let's be honest eating for SIBO it can be challenging it can downright suck at points you've already got so much going on you've got your treatments you're trying to remember to take all your medications and your supplements and not to mention all of the daily symptoms that you have to experience the pain the bloating the constipation or diarrhea or both and the brain fog and exhaustion the list just goes on having someone else take that hassle away from you for planning your food can make your day just that little bit easier and this is where I've come to your rescue I've developed Zeebo meal plans just for you they take all of the stress away from planning your SIBO daily food intake they're based on the SIBO biphasic diet by dr.
neurologic OB and each meal plan is just for the specific phase it relates to so you may be on phase 1 restricted or phase 1 semi restricted or phase 2 reduce and repair and there is a meal plan just for you we've got 14 days of SIBO friendly meals and recipes included there's weekly shopping lists there's handy hints and tips to make cooking easier and every recipe is 100% gluten-free the recipes are low grain we only use a little bit of rice or quinoa in the recipes depending on what phase you're following of course all the recipes a low carbohydrate very low dairy low sugar and there are low fodmap options included the great news is that you can download it instantly and you can get cooking today if you'd like to know more about the SIBO meal plans head to the healthy gut co /c bo - meal - plans or head to the show notes from today's episode and just click on the link there I hope you enjoy the meal plans guys I know it's going to save you so much time energy and effort and help you be compliant to your SIBO diet as you go through your treatment now let's get back to the show [Music] hmm it's fascinating and just talking about hives hives was something that were part and parcel of my daily life for many years and as soon as I started my SIBO treatment I noticed a huge reduction in hives and to the point where it's incredibly rare for me to have a breakout of hives these days which is great because I used to be covered in them I was always being put in a pine tassel bath or having chamomile lotion put on my skin for my mom trying to calm the red flaming itchiness that I was experiencing I've had some again because I put a call out for questions I had people ask me about Lich and sclerosis and also Lich and planned lachen like how do I say that like an mm sclerosis and also lichen planus and their connection with SIBO do you know much about those two you know it hasn't been reported in the literature lichen planus is a condition that has some similarities to psoriasis just because of the nature of the changes in the skin that happened with it they're both categorized as populo squamous disorders and you know I think my my belief in these connections between SIBO and the skin can and skin conditions is it I think in most cases it has to do with some common dysfunction of the immune system and you know so much of our immune system comes from our gut and I think that when our gut is disturbed it alters you know our immune system and makes us more susceptible to skin conditions and we don't have this all figured out yet but that's that's my that's my theory about this connection lichen sclerosis is a condition that in some ways is like scleroderma or systemic sclerosis because it causes fibrosis of the skin and I wouldn't be surprised just because of that common Meccan abnormality and the skin being sclerosis or scarring fibrosis that lichen sclerosis could have some of the same improvements with treatment for SIBO that systemic sclerosis has but it hasn't been reported not even any case study as you know because I've thoroughly scoured the published medical literature to see of any associations with other skin conditions and SIBO what about skin cancers today have a connection with gut health well they do the skin to the flora the microbiota of the skin impacts skin cancer we know that there's a strain of staphylococcus on the skin there's a that is associated with a type of skin cancer called cutaneous t-cell lymphoma it's not a real common skin cancer but it is definitely has this association with Staphylococcus on the skin we also know that beneficial skin bacteria particularly lactobacillus strains reduced inflammation in the skin and they enhance what we call immuno surveillance which is kind of like the the immune cells in our skin that circulate there and look for damage to the skin particularly from ultraviolet which is the main causative agent for skin cancer and when your immune system notices ultraviolet damage healthy skin can repair the damage to the DNA in the skin and not allow skin cancers to grow but if you have a deficiency of lactobacillus species in the skin then you're more likely to develop skin cancer so in this case we're talking about the microbiota of the skin rather than the guy mmm fascinating and what what comes first is it that the skin is that there are perhaps in an immune system that's not working properly that can lead to skin issues and SIBO or is there SIBO presence that then leads to the skin issues do is there a clear picture on you know whether you know is it chicken in the egg what what came first she calls this disruption well there's a there's a theory in medicine that's called the hygiene hypothesis and I referred to this when I was talking about eczema and the hygiene hypothesis basically says that a lack of early childhood exposure to infectious agents and to symbiotic bacteria like a less diversity of intestinal bacteria and also parasites can increase the susceptibility to immune dysfunction by suppressing the development of the immune system the part of the immune system that is supposed to help protect us from these types of immunological changes and that I think is really probably the what the you know it comes first is that there's disruption to the intestinal microbiota that interferes with a healthy development of the immune system and this hygiene hypothesis was originally presented in 1989 by a British epidemiologist named Strachan and since that time there have been many studies that have supported this theory and so I think and for example in the last decades as the incidence of eczema has increased particularly in young children and in low-income countries like Africa and East Asia and in urban environments we've seen that the westernization and the industrialization and changing the diet of indigenous people and there they're less them and and them having less exposure to microorganisms and they did historically has made you know children were susceptible to developing eczema so that's the way that I look at it and I think that you know there's a more work that needs to be done to kind of substantiate that theory but I think that it's basically lifestyle and environmental factors that have changed the way that our immune system develops when we're young that make us susceptible to these problems if somebody who's listening to today's interview has a young child or a baby with eczema what should they be doing about it to try and help with their child there are two things that are well substantiated in the literature one is to supplement the baby with probiotics and we don't really know yet which strains of probiotics organisms are best so I can't give any more specifics on that but the other thing is that omega-3 supplementation will reduce the risk and severity of eczema in children as well and in moms who may have a family history of eczema hay fever or asthma because they're all kind of part of the same immune dysfunction they can supplement these other probiotics and omega-3 supplements during pregnancy and reduce their child's risk of developing eczema and these other allergic conditions as well mmm that's interesting I was actually I've just been away with a group of friends and one of the women there has a five month old baby who the poor little thing is covered in eczema and I was talking to her about it and he was very disturbed his face was on fire the poor little thing and she was saying to me oh I used to have terrible eczema as a kid and I was thinking well that isn't that interesting there's you know it's a connection between her and her baby and you know she's talking about how she experienced it suffered it for years and now her little boy has it as well and and she was saying that she her doctor had put her onto a probiotic and she's breastfeeding and so their probiotic had helped his expert to an extent so that was it was really interesting another thing that parents can do is that they can try to expose their their babies to more microorganisms you know like taking them to visit aunt and uncle who live on a farm and let them be in the you know and in the barn with the cows and the pigs and the dogs and the sheep because there's lots of research that suggests that early childhood exposure to the back.the bacteria that are found in these farm animals is actually beneficial for the healthy development of the immune system and I think this is one of the the challenges of a more modern society if we live in big cities we often don't have any access to anyone on a farm and we're living in these very sterile houses and environments and I know I grew up with a mom who you know she doesn't particularly like dirt and I didn't like - and so we had a very sterile house and I didn't even really like going outside to play because it was too dirty help here now that would have been the best thing I could have done for my poor little immune system but um I was inside playing with Barbie weave if people don't have you know easy access to going to a farm is there anything else that we could be doing to help build that diversity in exposure to microorganisms well it's it sounds kind of strange but there is a school of thought in medicine that exposing not just children but even adults to various parasites like hook worms that can help the immune system either develop more normally or recover balance if it's all out of balance and so that that's kind of a way out their idea but there is there is research suggesting that that can be helpful obviously you know not using antibiotics unless they're absolutely necessary can be another major factor that we all run into throughout the course of our life a question I had from somebody around the use of antibiotics they were wondering whether their use of long term antibiotics for their acne treatment had caused their SIBO because they felt that they had not had any SIBO type symptoms present prior to the antibiotic treatment have you seen it that it that SIBO can then result after after antibiotic use for acne absolutely it's one of the well-established risk factors for SIBO as people who have had multiple courses of antibiotics and you know in some ways it's strange we were talking about acne and taking antibiotics for our acne the thing is that the antibiotics that are prescribed for acne are not the ones that are effective in treating SIBO so they actually just disrupt the balance of the gut bacteria and probably make us more prone to acne and tseebo because the the tetracycline antibiotics and others that are used in acne don't don't work for SIBO mmm and when you're like someone like me who spent four or so years on on those antibiotics just cycling through them one after the other you know you can spend a long time taking antibiotics that are just causing great disruption and people want to know what they can do if there's anything they can do topically to help relieve the burn or the itch or the dry flakiness that they might experience from some of these skin conditions do you have any topical treatments that you work with your patients with absolutely it's a really good question because you know the idea with treating skin disease is that it needs to be treated both from the inside out and the outside in to really get good results for dry skin one of the most important things is to restore the lack of of factors in the skin that maintain the water content and the main thing that does that are compounds in the skin called ceramides and so moisturizing creams and lotions that can contain ceramides are much more effective than older ones that don't have ceramides in them so that would be one thing another is that taking omega-3 supplementation orally will help to hydrate the skin as well by providing more fat to the skin that will make it more likely to be able to maintain again the water content of the skin there are therapeutic products available to that I use for these skin conditions that are typically herbal based I don't know I guess this isn't really I'm not bound by any restrictions about naming products on this podcast oh you're not she can name away out of full disclosure I will I will disclose that I do consult for this company that is an Israeli company called Co Metis kam EDIS and they have a line of products that are actually therapeutic for eczema another one for psoriasis they have a products for acne and also for seborrhoeic dermatitis which is what commonly causes dandruff and their products are herbal based they have ceramides in them and they work really really effectively in some cases more effectively than you know something like a topical corticosteroid so for the last four or five years I've been using these products and getting great results and they can be purchased if you're a practitioner through a distributor like here in the US we have a couple distributors Emerson objects and natural partners and for consumers there's a website that people can go to that is Co Metis I think it's dot or - us a.com let me just check and we'll put that link in the show notes so people can head to that that is the website yeah what about things like animal based topical creams like tallow based skin creams can they be beneficial they can be I don't have much experience using products like that but you know tallow lanolin you know other animal based fats can be nourishing and definitely help prevent dryness of the skin it's interesting I having had very oily skin for my whole life I was always looking at how to strip all of this excess oil off my face because I felt like an oil slick and a few years ago I started using an Australian brand called ecology skin care it's a tallow based skin cream it's beautiful and I'm first few weeks my skin felt really oily as my skin got used to having something that was a lot more natural rather than all of these harsh chemicals that I used to put on my face and it's interesting that the you know I guess with the combination of my gut health improving my diet improving what I put on my skin improving it has all all of it has really helped to see my skin really calm down and whilst I still definitely sit on the more oily side I can put a much sort of richer product on my face now without looking like I've just smeared oil all over and we were an adolescent because of our sexual maturation what we have is overabundance of the Hendersons like tests from that really stimulate the oil production in our oil glands and that's why we tend to have really oily skin when we're a teenager but as we get older our body addre just these higher levels of androgens then it doesn't it doesn't cause the overproduction of oil like a dozen or teenagers mm-hmm that's good to know but it's it's not fun when you're the teenager with the very oily face it feels quite miserable another question I was asked by somebody was with a sulphur plays a part in skin issues that's a really great great question because I think sulfur plays more of a role in our health and illness than most of us know and sulfur has been used in the past as a treatment for acne and also for other skin conditions like psoriasis but it's not something that I use at this time in my practice so I'm afraid I don't have much more to say sure now we we talked about I asked the question around you know what should we treat first the SIBO or the skin issues in you and you said you know treating them both but what's the risk if we don't treat one or the other the risk is unsuccessful treatment can it lead to more complications or more conditions appearing if we don't work on our health or the health of our skin well I think it certainly can if we don't work on our gut health I don't think that you get complications from not working on your skin health so much you just get persistence and worsening of the problem and quite often I think increase in negative emotions such as anxiety and depression over what you physically look like on the outside because that can be very stressful when people are looking at your skin and not really paying attention to you yeah I know that one well yeah me too and I think from my own personal experience you know when I was a teenager and I had your acne I would look in the mirror and that's all I would see you know I wasn't I wasn't really seeing me the person and I would feel that that's all anybody else would see when they looked at me but that that's and that's not true most people especially people who you who you know are really good friends they see the person they don't see you know the skin problem and that's I think that that's something that is important for people with skin conditions to to remember that you know there's more to them you know as far as other people's perception of them than just their skin condition mmm it can make you feel like you are a walking leopard owned and absolutely I know when I was I actually have this written down in a diary from from back when I was 15 and my wish was all I want is to have clear skin that's all I wanted in the world because I was just so covered in acne and I would love to go back to that 15 year old me and say look you get it it comes so stop worrying about your skin so much it it will calm down but it you know it was awful at the time there was actually a psychotherapeutic strategy to do that you know once you have seen that something that was really troubling you in the past has has resolved to go back to that younger you and you know and to talk to them and let them know because like I'm sure that I still carry some of the trauma that I experienced as a teenager where I was you know so affected by my acne that it made me feel very insecure and and it was not a happy time in my life and I think it was extremely traumatic for me mmm I've talked about my own experience with quite a lot of trauma I'm on previous podcasts and one of the things that I have done with the psychologists that I've done some work with is go back like you say to that younger the younger versions of myself at key points where trauma was occurring in my life and you know really talking to that younger me and being you know I guess so a role model as the adult self now and really making peace with a lot of the demons that I have been carrying and that's been very supportive therapy for me and it's really helped me to release a lot of the burden that I've carried for many years with you know multiple things that happen to me and I really do think that seeking the services of someone that can help with you know psychological treatment can be so beneficial and I didn't realize just how much of my psychological trauma was all sitting in my gut and how much anxiety was still sitting in there because it was everyday for me so I just didn't really notice it because that was my norm and then when I started to deal with it and it stopped being my norm I was like oh gosh I didn't realize how bad that was whereas now if I ever you know things still flare up and I will take that practice and I will go back to the younger me and we you know I'll kind of do that practice just quietly by myself and if I have found that very restorative and incredibly powerful to help me continue with this this long journey of healing that I'm currently on I think that you you must have gone through a similar transformation as me when I was you know a teenager my skin condition made me very shy and inhibited and insecure and as it cleared up and as I began to you know get into my 20s and and you know continue to evolve from then you know I've actually been caught you know come from being this kind of very turned inward introverted person to really like liking to be around people and being you know there's a definitely an extroverted part of me now too that wasn't there at all before I know if anyone saw me if I was able to just plonk my earlier self next to my current self it I really out would be chalk and cheese people would be amazed at you know who I was then to who I am today and that's a you know I'm really glad that I've had the opportunity to have the transfer as I'm sure you are as well dr.
Michael Roberts been a pleasure to have you on the healthy gut podcast today if people would like to connect with you what's the best way for them to do so well they can go to my website Michael tribe and D as in naturopathic doctor comm and my email address is on there it's relatively simple also it's M tribe and D at me calm wonderful and all of those links are in the show notes so thank you so much for coming on the show I know you've answered so many of the questions that my listeners put forward so thank you for your time and it's just been an honor to have you sharing your knowledge on all things gut health and skin diseases though thanks for coming on the show Thank You Rebecca it's been a pleasure it's been nice to get to know each other better this way it has thank you I hope you enjoyed that episode with dr.
Michael Traub it's really interesting for me to see how much of the conditions that I experienced throughout my life were actually interconnected to what was happening with my gut so as you've listened to this podcast if there's somebody you know who is really suffering from skin issues be it acne or rosacea or psoriasis or eczema anything that you know particularly if it's causing them to feel uncomfortable or depressed or anxious and I know I felt all of those things I'd love for you to share this with them because it may just be that guiding light that they need to take some action and to figure out what might be the underlying cause of what's happening in their skin if you would like to get the show notes from today or any of the downloads make sure you head to the healthy gut dot Co forward slash skin and if you have enjoyed today's episode don't forget you can head to that page the healthy gut dot to Co forward slash skin to leave your feedback I absolutely love seeing it there or you can leave it in iTunes or the app you use to listen to this podcast it's great when you leave a rating and review it really does help others to know that this is the right podcast for them and make sure you head over to our Facebook Instagram Pinterest YouTube Twitter and Google+ channels where active on all of them and we love seeing you there we're always sharing new content new information and it's great connecting with you there so come say hi just look for us under the healthy gut on next week's show it's a great topic one again I experienced personally and that is constipation so many of us see Boers you know to have to deal with just the pain and the suffering and the uncomfort of being constipated all the time next week's episode we're talking all about constipation with the lovely Linda gripper rich and she talks about how you can do some things to help alleviate constipation and what she does with her patients to support their bowel movements so not to be missed guys I really look forward to sharing that episode with you next week see you then you've been listening to the healthy gut podcast with your host Rebecca Coombs to learn more about the healthy gut or our podcast head to the healthy gut dot Co forward slash podcast and as we are fully funding this podcast if you would like to help support the continuation of this podcast so that we can continue to bring you future episodes all you need to do is make a contribution at the healthy gut dot Co forward slash podcast we would like to thank Belinda combs for the production editing and original music score of this podcast to hear more of Belinda's music head to soundcloud.com forward slash Belinda Coombs the healthy gut podcast is a production of the healthy gut thanks for listening you