Yessica Rodriguez | Ep #30 | Gluten Intolerances with a Nutritional Therapist

welcome jessica to doctor of the podcast hi guys thank you for the invitation i’m very honored to be here a little bit nervous but yeah thanks for the invitation thank you so much welcome yasi it’s our pleasure um so to start our conversation today we’re gonna talk about we’re going to open up a conversation with a statement which is according to the national library of medicine a published uk study showed that approximately 13 percent of a general population sample reported symptoms attributed to gluten yeah well i mean gluten sensitivity to be honest i think those numbers in my opinion are quite low actually globally the the their latest data is showing that it’s only like five percent of the population has gluten sensitivity which is means that a person whenever they eat gluten the gluten actually it’s in wheat barley and rye so whenever they this type of products or foods they get reactions such as they get these different symptoms such as for example bloating they also get flow to lens or they can get diarrhea or on the contrary constipation also joint pains are really common also or migraines or headaches right after a couple of hours after eating this this type of food so this is to be honest guys really really common because you know gluten products or gluten containing foods are everywhere and i think that’s one of the problems when people are constantly eating day and night gluten products you know for breakfast people start having i mean a toast or a croissant or a piece of bread yeah which contains gluten and then two hours later people are snacking with cookies biscuits or whatever also containing gluten and then for lunch like a sandwich and for dinner pasta so imagine this constant bombarding your your digestive system and your immune system with gluten obviously your body is going to start reacting to these foods so to be honest it’s really really common and you’re saying that i specialize in digestive problems so most of my clients they come with me with this type of symptoms so at the beginning you really need to understand and i think it’s very useful in clinic practice to really analyze someone’s diet to really see how much gluten they eating because gluten is one of the factors that influence or cause these digestive issues you know but it can be other products as well other types of food that are also creating problems in the digestive system symptoms so uh so it’s really really common guys and i see it constantly in my clinic uh especially in the uk you know the type of food we people eat here it’s very gluten gluten influenced so that’s one thing so the first thing that you advise to someone when they’re com having this type of symptoms is to try a gluten-free diet for like three four weeks for them to really see if their symptoms improve yeah so so what’s like a typical gluten-free diet because i guess that gluten in general is necessary for in in maybe in a milder dose is necessary right but as you were telling when we have it on at breakfast at lunch and then at dinner like what would a balance uh gluten including gluten before we go to gluten-free diet what would be a balanced one in in your experience very good point uh guni because actually yeah when people think about when people start having these symptoms and you’re touching very good point females especially we are more sensitive to gluten or to other foods it might be related also with our hormonal systems as well and we start with especially around our menstrual cycle we get bloating you know or like retention of liquids or we feel a little bit bloated so it’s really it’s kind of difficult that’s what it’s very difficult for people to really understand what can be causing my symptoms yeah so that’s the exactly tasha it’s very i mean you you feel i mean you just ate and you don’t know what caused you your migraine or your joint pains so it’s hard for people to really understand and especially you know also one thing that i noticed with people that some people think that having digestive symptoms after eating is really i mean normal think like yeah having blow or having gases float to legs you know or diarrhea for example is quite normal well i have to be honest because i like earlier this year when we spoke to a chinese medicine practitioner she was explaining this and i then realized like oh my god what i’ve been experiencing in life is not normal i thought it was normal i feel like you’re at the natural cause of life you know you eat and then you have to go to the toilet and that’s exactly what you eat you feel very sleepy you know very slowly normal but after eating i have to take a nap no it’s not normal it’s common it’s very common but something being common it doesn’t mean that it’s normal so that’s we need to understand the difference it’s not normal to have these symptoms or it’s not normal to be for example like my father he’s telling me i’m 70 something it’s normal for me to have like very bad memory what is normal because all your life you have been eating pretty bad so you think you’re gonna develop all of these symptoms but it’s not normal yeah that’s a good point and i like that link that you made as well um and people think has been you’ve been having this experience for so long it’s like this is part of life so there’s nothing to question there’s nothing that it’s not like stopping me from living life so it’s not something that i should be looking into right exactly exactly and that’s so maybe but maybe let’s define normal because some people might say well it’s like for centuries people have been eating those right have been eating gluten etc and so they would say well what do you mean by normal and we said common okay so we made the distinction between common and and normal but let’s go deep into normal because a state i mean we will develop gases we will develop like you know uh sluggishness at some point but to what extent is normal okay exactly well the food the food we eat the main purpose for food is to give us energy to give us nutrients to continue our life that’s what normality is unfortunately i’m touching a very good point johnny at the moment white people are having more problems with gluten because the gluten containing foods we’re eating at the moment are completely different that the gluten people were eating 100 years ago the gluten you want me eating is not the same gluten as my grandmother your grandmother were eating it’s completely different one of the factors is because it’s been genetically modified so the the gluten structure is bigger that’s why people are having more problems another thing most of the gluten is being severely exposed to fertilizers for example glycophage it’s and actually one of the some of the research is showing that also it’s not only the gluten but all of these fertilizers are the ones that are giving problems to people when we’re eating gluten because it’s poison imagine in our digestive system we have our beautiful micro microflora our microbiome our good bacterias that are there to protect us and what these foods severely sprays are doing they’re killing all of this microbiome that’s why we are developing a lot of symptoms so answering your question rooney what a gluten-free diet is a healthy gluten-free diet because nowadays it’s very i mean gluten-free products are everywhere you know because this is a huge market so people thinking okay my solution is gonna be going for for a gluten-free diet and they’re going to the supermarket and buying all of the processed produce which on the label it says gluten-free and that’s fine and i’m going to be fine and all my problems are going to go away the problem with those products are that they’re process products so yes guys i’ll send you a question what is a gluten-free diet a natural gluten-free diet it’s to eat whatever the nature give us which are the seasonal produce i mean fruits vegetables nuts seeds legumes that’s what we should be eating the natural seasonal foods and then eventually yeah we can include for example that fermented breath but also that’s another problem why now people have problems digesting the bread nowadays full of gluten because now the industrialization is using yeast instead of the lung fermentation that they were using in the past to create those beautiful love of breath so everything now is you know very fast so that’s why people start having problems so yeah don’t think because a product or a food it’s labeled as a gluten-free it means that it’s healthy actually the contrary i will say you know it’s a huge market and companies are using this to sell more products so just read carefully the labels on the back and go for natural foods well like i feel that at the end like you know full carbs like i’m thinking because i’ve been thinking how do i reduce my gluten intake etc and so it looks like okay if i don’t pick those gluten-free products and you know when they they say for example like pasta etc then i’m i’m just you know bound to have carbs that are potatoes or just rice okay is that it for carbs no come on i mean everywhere it’s i mean every vegetables and every fruit even nuts and seeds have some percentage of carbs root vegetables the carrots the parsnips uh the cruciferous vegetables we are the broccoli the cabbage family vegetables those are also really good for females because they have some compounds that help us to detox this excess of estrogen but that’s another topic for a different podcast but all of those vegetables are really good cars because actually pasta you know bread there i mean they’re not really that good because they increase your insulin and then that creates also inflammation in the body so i would recommend someone just go for what nature gives us like natural produce yes so if i’m just playing the devil’s advocate here because i know there’s a lot of uh because i’m like 100 percent in i unders like i understand this i just have a lot of pushback from the people around me who are you know carb lovers the typical carbs when i mean carbs right especially for the asian kind of background they would say rice so rice is fine it looks like you know it doesn’t have too much gluten but like for example in uh because i’m from switzerland so when i go back to switzerland just loads of bread uh pasta and and so they’re like how do you how do you eat in a restaurant because does either it’s either based on rice um pasta or bread one of those three you know the base is always there and if you go for non-carb like traditional carb uh base it’s a salad or it’s and you look down upon if you pick that one or sometimes the option is not even existing in the in that menu card so what would you say or what would you what would be your recommendation of like how to what would be the right approach when you go to the restaurant or when you go out and because one of the issues is like oh you you you seem complicated because oh is this gluten-free is this that and this what is your kind of your advice on that exactly i mean when you go out or you’re invited to a party we’re social humans being so it’s i mean you don’t have to be that strict however if you are being diagnosed as cilia you really have to avoid gluten otherwise you’re gonna have you’re gonna compromise your immune system severely but if you have if you notice that after you eating gluten you get these symptoms that i just mentioned just try to avoid it as much as you can at home that’s what i tell my clients do the best you can at home because at home you are in control but when you go outside you’re invited to a party exactly i mean if you want to try a piece of cake try some cake i mean if you go to a restaurant and the the menu is really limited okay try to choose the healthiest dish on the on the menu but don’t be i mean also try to enjoy because it’s not good also to have all of this stress because stress also increase your your option of developing more digestive symptoms you know it’s very related the nervous system with the digestive system so try to be relaxed enjoy your day out and you’re you’re you’re you’re going out to the restaurant enjoy the meal but at home where you have more control try to have a cleaner diet right and also depends on your symptoms if you are really really ill and you have to go through a healing uh journey obviously maybe you need to be more strict but it’s also that it depends on every single individual i think you touched a really interesting point there uh jessie where you said to not bring that stress with you when you’re eating and i wonder like have you had any patients who were really making the effort um with eating holistically and whole foods and reducing their i guess uh gluten intake but still experiencing uh you know inflammation and kind of the the symptoms that gluten bring bring about yes yes gesta this is very common because it’s not only gluten that causing problems you know i mean all it could be for example it could be also dairy products a lot of people drink eat a lot of cheese or milk and also the industrialization of these industries they’re not really producing the best dairy products full of toxins with hormones with antibiotics that they give to the animals so they’re really not producing the best quality produce obviously people are gonna develop or experience different symptoms that’s why it’s not that easy to eliminate gluten and your life is gonna be easy you know you really need to to really like i told you at the beginning me as a professional i really need to analyze what people’s diet is what they’re eating the most because this could be the clues of why people are experiencing different symptoms so there is another one yeah yeah and you were saying as well earlier like um how you know this information right so for me as well i i have i’m constantly uh bloated i feel even when i don’t eat gluten and so i always feel like what am i not doing to like stop this from happening right um and i and i i’m curious to know like because there’s all this conversation about like gut health do you you know uh better your gut health improve your microbiome in your in your uh body and so then i don’t really understand the link between gluten and and um uh your gut health is there a link um of course i mean because for example gluten gluten berry fructose or all of these different uh processed ingredients that the industry including to the product into the foods are like toxins to your body so your body starts reacting to those toxins because your body recognize them as an invader and intrusion into your seed into the system so the body starts developing a immune reaction to to attack and to defend you from those offenders so obviously that’s why that’s why it’s not only digestive symptoms that people experience that’s why some people have like i told you joint pains or migraines or some people also have skin issues because that’s when the immune system is involved and that’s why it becomes like a systematic problem so obviously that’s why it’s really important for you to stop eating these products to really calm down the immune system also your nervous system because oh everything is connected that’s what i love about natural medicine that we really understand that everything is connected with one body that is everything is connected seeing it as a healing moment right and everyone has a different period of time where they can i guess heal because one of the questions i guess you go into this gluten-free diet but for how long um if you say okay it’s a week two weeks then that’s fine like emotionally speaking or like mentally speaking it’s like okay i can deal with two weeks um but with someone who has a severe you know situation uh with gluten sensitivity or intolerance what is like a typical period where you would have to adopt a gluten street a strict gluten-free diet i mean it depends you know how bad the person is and what stage of the pathology the person is so like you said emotionally is easier for you to think okay i’m gonna go gluten-free for four weeks it’s very easy it’s doable because if you tell someone yeah you’re gonna do it this for a year it’s i mean this is like a straight measure and that’s gonna give more stress to the person so you need to do baby steps baby steps because here we’re not talking a diet we’re not talking about following a diet we are really changing the lifestyle of a person so you we really need to understand that the the modern lifestyle we have been dragged to is not really the the healthiest yes so i think i mean it depends on every person but the easiest thing to do for someone for all the people who are listening to us yeah try it for a moment go gluten-free for a more and then see how you’ll be how you start feeling and also it’s a really good advice to also have like a food diary where you know what you eat and how you feel so you start making the connections because it might not be only the gluten you know i mean especially if you you’ve been experiencing digestive symptoms for a really long time for years most likely is like your goat lining it could be a little bit damaged i’m gonna explain you the five part you read my mind i was gonna say what is that what is it point of view of uh helping someone to bri i mean improve their digestive system so it’s called the 5r approach so the five the first r is remove remove from your diet the foods that you think it might be causing the problems which in this case we’ve been talking about gluten could be also very also i advise my clients to remove all processed foods because like i told you before they’re full of toxins of uh ingredients that we don’t know what they do colorants so all of those are really are really damaging your gut lining would you consider like bread and like croissants and pastries for example like processed foods oh i mean yeah just because like i told you they’re not using the the techniques that they used to be that they used to do you know i mean they’re not fermenting those breads or the the flowers as they used to be now they eat yeast in instant yeast so obviously we we’re not we’re not gonna digest that bread as we supposed to because it hasn’t been pre-digested because when somebody ferments naturally all these proteins also start degrading and they become easier for our digestive system to digest so obviously if somebody i mean they’re using you know these g’s and they make a bread in 10 minutes obviously it’s not going to be releasing for your digestive system to to digest it which is at the same time i understand it’s very hard for people who are really busy our female listeners who are you know going after a career and then you have to cook everything from scratch i understand it’s really hard i mean it’s really hard it was hard for me at the same at the beginning when i was really ill but you need to go baby steps baby steps you know i think i think that’s just like okay so she’s trying to assess how difficult this move is going to be to go full uh gluten free but uh so you were saying uh from the 5r um approach so that was removed but in the remove phase is really important because you need to remove not only the foods but also the life the the habits the bad habits that are also affecting us affecting our emotions affecting our our nervous system not only what we eat it’s also what we do in our day to day that it’s also affecting our health yeah so if you really have time yeah i mean if every weekend you go to a pub and you get really drunk obviously that’s gonna have consequences in your in your not only don’t you end up in your digestive health but in your general health so it’s about removing everything that’s making you feel sick with yourself so it’s not only food but also life habits you know but here is teaching the person holding on your hand i’m telling you it’s possible don’t be afraid let’s go baby steps and let’s move on to the next arc which is replace so it says we’re gonna replace all the processed foods for natural foods which is lovely because i mean we just need to really be more selective of what we buy and what we eat we need to replace for example like we were saying the pasta for maybe organic carrots or cauliflower or quinoa or brown rice they’re always always healthier are alternatives so we just need to replace the processed foods for healthier alternatives so that’s also that’s the second are the third one is rhinoculate is reproduction we need in this third phase we need to introduce whatever is missing nutrients can be nutrients can be also foods that some people used to eat which have healing properties for example also you need to start introducing maybe a digestive enzymes if somebody is lacking on a good hcl hydrochloric acid that help us to digest the food we need to produce introduced into the diet so people start digesting food better absorbing all the nutrients better and also what are the habits that we need to include here you know maybe yoga meditation like a gratitude journal you know all these things that we somehow forgotten because we are extremely busy and we really give it the importance that it has so we really need to start in introducing all of those practice ancient practices that you guys are your cultures are experts on this so we really need to learn from those asian cultures what they were doing they were doing everything so good so we really need to start including this into our day today at the repair we’re going now into the repair phase we’re here gonna introduce this all of these foods that are proven that are gonna help us repair the gut lining so actually before you go into repair i just wanted to ask you in the re-inoculate stage right you say uh getting the right nutrients so for someone who is for example uh i guess trying to do this themselves of course it’s best to do with a practitioner but you know they’re trying to understand their body better and get more nutrients and so they’re doing the exclusion of things that they make them feel sick and uh you know replacing with better foods how do they identify you know which foods uh they are missing from their diet like how do they understand that yeah i mean one of the very easy advice is to follow whatever is seasonal follow what is in season eat whatever is in season because nature is very savvy and it’s it’s already giving us what we need and we try to whatever we craving instead of whatever nature giving us so go and look for whatever is in season because those products are higher in nutrients higher in vitamins minerals so start with that and start experimenting with different foods different ingredients also yeah fermented foods as well are really important that we start including them because actually when we have lots of digestive problems our micro microbiome our flora it’s very depleted you know and so it’s important that we start drinking or eating fermented foods they’re also very available now and good options in organic shops so we really need to start including whatever we’ve been lacking for a long time so it depends on how processed your diet has been for all of these years and so next is repair then repair exactly like i told you give nutrients to your body what nutrients your body has been lacking i’m talking here about maybe perhaps a vitamins or supplements but in this case i really advise someone to work with a practitioner because it’s not good just to go to a shop and randomly choose because you never know i mean the dosages and if it’s gonna have interaction and mostly important it’s to really understand if that’s what your body is it’s needing in that moment you really need to take whatever your body needs at that particular moment to give your body whatever it needs to heal instead of becoming something that it can be toxic right so yeah repairs give give for example here it’s very important that people start taking for example bomb broads soups healing soups ginger turmeric because those ingredients are really really repairing the gut lining the the decrease inflammation internal inflammation and the last one the the five are it’s retain retake and all the work that you have done retain it okay like i told you this is our life journey it’s not three weeks diet and then i go back to my bad habits because at the point you know we’re not i mean this diet culture it doesn’t it hasn’t worked so many years it has actually created more problems emotional problems and all that so really retain you have done a lot of work retain everything you’ve done so your body really starts to start the journey the journey process yes exactly that’s really that’s helpful i like i like that you put you know you have this five hour approach that um it breaks it down it’s clear it’s straightforward people can digest this pun intended um yeah and so then like they can actually take this home and like say okay this how can start if i can’t get a naturopathic uh doctor or like a nutritionist near me then i’ll start this way how can i remove it and follow the you know the flow of it right um but still i think that uh i um experimenting on your own is okay to a certain point but it’s always good to i think double check with someone that is an expert because um it could go cuckoos if you don’t have you think you’re doing the right things but then potentially neglecting another side of you know your diet so i think that’s the thing is try to get try to get like the some sort of like consultation or some advice yeah proper advice it’s it’s difficult you know because nowadays talking about diets the keto diet now is really popular or i mean paleo diet is really yeah yeah all of these we are bombarded with so many different information so we obviously get lost that’s how i felt when i was really ill that’s why actually i became nutritional therapist because i was sick for so many years and i couldn’t find a solution in the conventional medicine so for me no i need to really find i’m yeah because i was trying to do things on my own oh yeah let me experiment with this or with that but you really don’t go to the root cause of what might be causing the real problem so you really need to work with someone a professional to really advise you it’s not going to be forever it depends on how you feel it might take a couple of months six months it depends on your personal situation but uh yeah i think these five are approaches really is easy for people to follow as well yes yeah and kind of to to close off your your point when it gets to going to see a practitioner and or someone who is a specialist and why maybe people have this um they refrain to go to um someone who’s going to talk about how to eat or who’s going to teach them of how because it’s something that we overlook so much um but it’s such an important aspect of of our lives right and so just speaking like investing in that is investing in in your in your health in a on a longer term right um so so thank you so much se4 for bringing us uh this 5r approach uh and and bringing some light on on gluten gluten intolerance and sensitivity yeah yeah definitely and um i guess to close off um from our conversation we do uh rapid fire questions uh um maybe we can start with uh what is the worst health advice that you’ve ever received yeah i mean and it goes very well into this conversation because when i was severely ill i remember one gastroenterologist told me eat whatever you want it doesn’t matter so for me it was really about painting because every time i ate or every time i had a glass of water i was feeling bad so obviously that advice was the worst that’s what i mean or no this is not true i need to look for natural solutions because this is really good ever exactly right very very on point on our conversation yeah the second the second question is if there was one habit we should all adopt what would it be i mean it’s going to be very sound it’s going to sound very obvious but drink water drink enough water you have no idea how many people i see in clinic which don’t drink enough water so drink you need to keep yourself hydrated one one liter one liter and a half two liters it’s very important and also another one because only one is very easy it’s very limited include ginger and turmeric into your life they’ve been amazingly for me for my clients they have amazing healing properties and especially for digestive health they’re really really important they decrease inflammation so start including drink water with slices of ginger and that’s going to be that’s going to make a huge difference in your in your life yeah that’s it that’s a good tip i’m going to try that in malaysia we drink like tea with ginger a lot so i think that’s a yeah new new thing to try um and and the last one so if you were to fit a song or soundtrack to your life what would it be oh wow i mean uh love steam by barry white i don’t know if you’re this beautiful but this one reminds me of my father yeah i mean it takes me back to my childhood my father used to listen this song all the time so yeah it gets me it takes me to a very happy place so that’d be that big yeah that’s sweet yeah that’s really cute well thank you so much yasi for joining us today uh it’s been a pleasure and i hope you um come back on our show i wanna thank you for everything you’re doing for for promoting complementary medicine uh round off applause to you guys because you’re doing something really amazing i’m really really thankful for what you guys doing and let’s continue promoting the natural medicine because i think that’s what people need thank you so much