Podcast Introduction

00:05

Welcome to tune in to Wellness podcast.

00:08

I am your host, registered nurse and holistic Wellness nurse coach Jewelene Meacham.

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This podcast is designed to share inspiring stories, provide you with useful resources, and to empower you to live vibrantly.

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Following a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer, I committed to supporting Wellness

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For those facing cancer and chronic illnesses, but we don't have to wait for a health crisis to find Wellness. Wherever you are in your journey, TuneIn each group for the best conversations from experts and industry leaders to inspire us to live our most vibrant life now.

Episode Content

01:01

So welcome today to Wellness After Cancer’s podcast.

01:06

Today we have the opportunity to speak with one of my nurse coach peers and friends, Dawn Galligan Rodriguez, and she is going to actually help us understand some concepts around nutrition.

01:22

Umm, nutrition should not be so complicated, but it most definitely is.

01:27

We hear new words all the time.

01:29

We don't always understand them, so we just kind of ignore them.

01:32

And so we are going to learn in this series, we're actually going to have a series with Dawn, some basics around some of these concepts and how they can make such a great impact on us.

01:45

So I'm going to give Dawn a moment to introduce herself and then we're going to learn today about the microbiome.

01:53

Alright.

01:54

So Dawn, welcome.

01:56

Well, thank you so much Jewelene.

01:58

I appreciate you so much asking me to be on your podcast.

02:04

A little bit about myself.

02:06

As you know, I'm I'm in the nurse coaching uh path with along with Jewelene.

02:12

But what started me down this path was a long time ago I would before I became a nurse.

02:17

I actually have a degree in bacteriology and genetics, bachelors of science.

02:23

And I, you know, it was one of those things where I didn't know what to do when I was in college, but I really loved science.

02:29

That's where I found myself.

02:31

And for four years, I worked in basic research at the bench, so to speak, and it was an amazing experience.

02:37

I worked with physicians.

02:38

We researched allergy and asthma and how they affect children.

02:43

You know, the immune system.

02:44

We work with cell cultures, bacterial cultures, all of that good stuff.

02:48

But over time, I realized I really wanted more people and less Petri dishes in my life.

02:54

So, um, I did.

02:56

I embarked on going back to nursing school.

02:59

Got a bachelors in nursing.

03:01

This is all at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

03:03

And after that I, you know, as a young nurse I was working in transplant nursing.

03:10

I went back to allergy and asthma in clinical trials and then I did take a long break to raise my boys.

03:17

Came back to nursing in the education aspect.

03:21

So I decided I wanted to teach.

03:23

I always loved to teach.

03:24

And as I think you might agree, Jewelene, as nurses, we are teachers.

03:29

We are.

03:30

So I went back to get a masters in nursing education, became a nursing instructor, did that for another four years, and during that time I felt drawn back to the bedside.

03:41

Surprisingly enough, I didn't know that I would ever do something like that again.

03:46

And it pulled me back in, I really wanted to see if I could do it, and I did it.

03:51

I ended up working in a stroke unit, stroke and neuro unit, med search unit, and it just sort of dovetailed together nicely with my teaching.

04:01

I ended up leaving that job with a cross country move and that's when I found nurse coaching.

04:06

And it's just been an awesome, awesome journey to be in this place where we can really feel like we're maybe helping our patients a little more directly and intensely.

04:18

Yeah, I think the more that the community becomes aware of how valuable nurse coaching can be, it will become more understood by most people.

04:30

But you know.

04:31

As nurses, we are teachers, we teach all the time and unfortunately in our healthcare system right now there's not a lot of time for the teaching.

04:39

It's not that the nurses don't want to do it, it's that you know the staffing and and the quickly getting people out of the hospital.

04:48

So you know we do have a long way to go in trying to transition what we want to do as nurses and how we can better do it and help make a better impact.

05:01

To the healthcare system and the individuals around us.

05:05

So I do think that one of the things that is very confusing is nutrition.

05:13

We hear a new diet every week.

05:17

We try all kinds of different things.

05:19

Sometimes we're counting, you know, macros.

05:22

And the next time we're counting, we got to count our steps and we've got to count our, you know, calories and our fat grams and how much sugar we're taking in.

05:32

And all of a sudden we just go, this is too much.

05:34

I just am going to eat.

05:36

So we're going to try really hard to learn from you, Don a little bit about some of the words that we hear.

05:44

Hmm, that kind of feel a little confusing to us.

05:48

So today, let's start with: help us understand what the microbiome is.

05:57

Absolutely. It's one of my favorite subjects lately.

06:01

We are hearing more and more about the microbiome and, you know, like popular medical websites and in the popular media reporting on, you know, recent research.

06:12

It's truly like a new universe that we're learning about.

06:15

And as we go through this, you'll understand why I say that.

06:19

So our microbiome really consists of.

06:24

The bacterial population that we have living in us and on us. We usually think about it as the bacteria in our gut.

06:34

We a lot of people know about it, some people don't.

06:36

That we have a whole population of bacteria living in our large intestine and some in our small intestine as well.

06:42

And it provides us with, wow, a ton of functions that we really could not live without. OK, but we do have bacteria elsewhere in the body.

06:53

That is also what.

06:54

They would call part of our collective microbiome.

06:57

We have bacteria living on our skin, so it's really like a layer between us and and the environment.

07:04

We also have bacteria living in our like oral pharynx cavities, our throat, our mouth, our nasal cavities, our sinuses even down into our lungs, believe it or not, and our urogenital tract.

07:19

So all these places have bacteria that we need there.

07:23

They're beneficial to us and they're not something that we want to try to.

07:27

Uh, disinfect and take away from ourselves.

07:29

I think we get really focused on that like we're disinfecting everything, especially since COVID like we think that germs are so bad, but germs are necessary.

07:40

We we have to have bacteria and viruses and parasites.

07:46

We have to have all of those things as as part of our one.

07:51

They're part of our body, they're part of what helps that balance.

07:54

So when we talk about the microbiome.

07:57

In the gut, because obviously now we've learned that it's on our skin, it's kind of everywhere and it's OK.

08:04

In our gut, is it all good bacteria or is there some bad bacteria that we need? 

Well, it can be thought of as a true balance.

08:17

We want to always promote the growth of our, quote UN quote, good bacteria, right, if the good bacteria have some insults.

08:27

Um, and we can, we'll talk more about that.

08:30

It decreases, you know, their viability and allows any bad bacteria that might be lingering there and it could be other things like viruses or fungi or even parasites that can overtake the balance and you know, lean us over into a bad microbiome.

08:48

So at any one time there could be some bad microbes in there, but by keeping our body healthy and keeping our microbiome.

08:58

Healthy we keep them in check.

And that's what's so important and I think that's the part that we don't really even know what that means “keep them in check.”

09:06

So now we know we've got this universe inside us that is necessary and just to make sure that we understand.

09:15

So the microbiome is helping us by keeping infections down like what, what is the what is the kind of core purpose for the microbiome.

09:27

Well, it's, it's really amazing.

09:29

So the microbiome actually helps us with so many functions and you mentioned the immune system, right, trying to keep up our infections at bay.

09:38

So it really helps bolster our immune system and I can talk 

09:43

A little bit about why that is, but other things that it helps us with is truly like digestion at a fundamental level.

09:49

The things that the microbiome, especially in a healthy state, produce in our gut help us with a lot of different things.

09:58

It keeps our… it even helps us modulate our mood and our state of mind, our level of cognition, so to speak.

10:08

The immune part of it is really important because if we get too bad.

10:13

Of an imbalance, we're going to talk about some bad things that happen that can also lead to every one of the autoimmune diseases that we know of, which now we have 80 to 100 identified autoimmune diseases.

10:25

They all link back to what we call leaky gut and we're going to get to that later.

10:30

But this all ties into having that healthy profile of the microbiome.

10:37

But man, that's so important for us to understand.

10:40

So what are some ways that we might get our microbiome out of balance? Like what might be a way that we are going in the wrong direction? 

Well, there's a lot of things that we encounter every day that can either help or hinder our microbiome.

10:58

And I like to think that microbiome is one of our partners, right? We call this a symbiotic relationship when we have a good microbiome thriving.

11:07

In our body.

11:09

We're working together.

11:10

So anything we do to ourselves and we're not always thinking about the microbiome in our body, right.

11:15

We just, it's really just part of us.

11:17

Anything we do to our bodies, we're doing too that, to our microbiome.

11:22

So for instance that I always talk about Food First, thinking about food as medicine, that's kind of one of my messages.

11:30

My core messages is that we've all heard about this standard American diet, the SAD diet.

11:36

So that's just one basic example that.

11:39

Food is stripped of fiber and micronutrients.

11:43

It's really more of an empty food.

11:45

It's providing calories and actually a lot of deleterious things that really impact the health of our microbiome, OK? And there's a lot of ways that's happening.

11:59

Another thing that affects us is toxins that we encounter every day in our environment.

12:04

So when we hear the word toxin, we think, Oh my gosh, are are we poisoning ourselves every day?Well, these are chemicals that were coming into contact on a micro basis but all the time.

12:16

So that could be cleaning products that we use in our home, it could be our skin care products that we use, our shampoos and creams and cosmetics, things like that.

12:29

And another really strong source of toxins would be the myriad of medications that we take.

12:36

So one great example that a lot of people have heard of are antibiotics, right? So we have a strep throat.

12:43

We take the penicillin.

12:45

The penicillin kills the streptococcus that we really want to to happen because if you go untreated with an infection like that, it can cause very, very serious health effects down the line, not just a sore throat.

12:59

So we need to get rid of that infection.

13:01

What happens is that same antibiotic is affecting bacteria all over our body.

13:05

It's not selecting only for the bacteria in our throat.

13:09

And so really it's been shown that a one course of antibiotics can, you know, annihilate an entire population of bacteria.

13:17

And over time, if somebody's not working at it, it's very difficult to build that back up.

13:23

So and there's ways to do that.

13:25

You need to be conscious of it and and take specific steps to do that.

13:29

But medications are another source of toxins.

13:32

Another example would be like a proton pump inhibitor, not an antibiotic.

13:37

But what does that do? It decreases.

13:39

Acid in our stomach, right? These are things like pantoprazole or omeprazole.

13:44

And you know, we take those things because we have heartburn.

13:48

We feel like we have too much acid in our stomach.

13:51

Well, the problem is we have too much acid in the wrong place, right, kind of seeping up into the esophagus, so to speak.

13:58

The problem with taking those medications is that it decreases, fundamentally decreases the acid in our stomach.

14:03

And that's changing the nature of your digestion starting from the moment that food lands in the.

14:09

The actual stomach organ, right.

14:12

So that's going to affect everything that happens downstream.

14:14

There's other ways to holistically help you with your acid problems, then disrupting the entire digestive process.

14:24

And then there's one more thing that affects our microbiome and that is the stress that we feel.

14:30

Our stress response is very effective at slowing our digestion down.

14:38

There's also other biochemical.

14:39

Things that happen that really impact the balance of our microbiome. 

You know, as I listen to you, we might have just heard the word microbiome in the most in the more recent months and years, but.

14:56

We've always been, you know, told I'm 55.

14:59

And, you know, I've always known you take an antibiotic, you're going to need to eat some yogurt or you'll get a yeast infection or, you know, I mean, so there's always kind of these things that someone out there knew that we've got this, this balance that we need to keep in our gut, but nobody really explained it to us.

15:17

So we just like.

15:19

Did the process kind of just because that's what we were supposed to do? The more we understand it though, the more that we realize there's more than just that antibiotic for the strep throat that you know we need to consider specifically.

15:33

So I know that 60 to 70% of our immune system is in our gut and if we realize that to keep healthy, to stay healthy, we want our immune system.

15:49

To work as optimally as possible.

15:52

And now we know that we've got this microbiome in our gut that

15:58

We need to keep healthy to keep our immune system healthy, you know, to be healthy overall.

16:04

So that's kind of a big aha, right? So you know, when we, when we talk about stress, when we talk about taking medications, these aren't always easy fixes to say, OK, well, I'm going to stop taking my antacid or I'm going to stop being stressed.

16:23

Wouldn't that be great if we just said we're going to stop it and just happened? I think we've got to learn to manage our stress.

16:28

But recognizing that we are one, you know, our body, body, mind, spirit, we really are all one and we've got to realize how our body interrelates.

16:40

Yes, 

Within us and how we can help it.

16:43

So you know, we know that we can have these stressors, these medications, these bacteria that we just have in our environment with our skin care or hair products or cleaning products.

16:56

So we know that these can hurt us.

17:00

What would you say are maybe some key things for take away from this concept of the microbiome if we want to walk away from this interview with just a couple of like really important takeaways, share with us that because I think that my next question is probably going to take us into our next part two of our series where we talk about pre and probiotics.

And, you know, so this really is a build upon series.

17:33

So microbiome, thank goodness we now know that we have one.

17:38

Yeah.

17:40

And that the things that we do and the way that we feel and what we put in our bodies and what we have in our environment is really important.

17:49

So give us a few key takeaways of just.

17:54

What we need to absolutely remember about the microbiome, OK, well I would say first, just remember first of all that it is seriously part of us.

18:06

Like you said, we are all one and I really like to think of our body as like a well oiled machine.

18:12

So what you do in one part of your life is going to affect all organ systems.

18:18

So as I mentioned before, one of my main first messages with any clients that I meet.

18:24

Is diet OK? This is one of the biggest factors that we consider as part of our environment, right? And quite literally, it is the environment for our microbiome.

18:37

Once we eat something, that's what's going down and affecting directly the microbiome.

18:42

So we always want to be eating the highest quality food that we can and in our world, our culture, that is to say in the United States, specifically speaking.

18:54

Kind of our SAD diet, the set, the standard American diet, we want to push out the processed food and bring in whole food, whole natural food and then organic as much as possible.

19:07

And why do we say organic? Because quite honestly if it's not organic, even if it's a whole food, which is great, we will get some of those toxins on there which is like glyphosate and other chemicals that our farmers, our you know mass produced farmers, use so.

19:25

Anything you can do within your diet to clean it up with whole food, lots of vegetables, some fruits.

19:33

If you're eating meat, grass fed naturally pasture raised livestock.

19:39

Same with chicken, your eggs as clean as possible, pasture raised fish which should be wild caught, not farm raised.

19:48

So all of those the the diet parts of our, the environment that we're giving our microbiome.

19:55

Needs just to be literally as clean as possible then and we can go much more deep about specific things and when we talk about pre and probiotics, we'll go there.

20:05

Secondly, about the toxins in our environment.

20:08

It's probably very overwhelming for listeners to hear that we have these effects in our body, in our, in our homes really affecting our body and what I would recommend is taking baby steps to changing that.

20:23

So anytime.

20:25

It it, you know, if it behooves you, you want to make these changes when you run out of a product, research what you can replace that with, that is safer. OK, there is a great website and app called EWG, which is just really amazing.

20:43

You can take that on your phone, scan products in the grocery store, and a lot of them are in their directory already and it'll give it a grade.

20:53

So I use that a lot.

20:55

That's awesome.

20:56

Yeah, it's really nice.

20:57

And nowadays there's a lot of personal care products out there.

21:00

You can use that app for personal care products and cleaning products.

21:04

Well, that app needs to be on everyone's phone.

21:07

Yes, yes, I 100% agree.

21:09

And say the app name again.

21:11

It's EWG. OK.

21:14

And so there are so many self-care products now that are being manufactured that don't have all these harmful things like palates. OK.

21:26

So looking for that, even on the label as you're going through, you're in a hurry.

21:30

Try to find one that says free of all of the harmful chemicals that we know are bad for us.

21:37

And then, you know, finally, like entertaining and pondering the idea of getting ourselves healthier through a big part of it is the diet and some of our behaviors.

21:50

But then eventually you might be able to get off some medications.

21:54

That's not always possible.

21:57

But or even reducing the dose, it's every little bit counts and then you know people a year from now.

22:05

Find that they're able to just completely go off some medications.

22:09

Those would be my biggest takeaways, being aware of what antibiotics do to us, what we can do while we're taking antibiotics and afterwards.

22:18

And those are what I would mostly recommend, well done.

22:22

That is so helpful.

22:25

You know, as I'm listening to you, I love that you said let's take baby steps to get there.

22:30

This can feel overwhelming if you're listening to this and you're saying.

22:35

Ohh, my goodness.

22:35

Like I want to be healthier.

22:37

But man, I've got to do an upheaval of my life that can be a deterrent for us to do anything and instead do take the baby steps, you know, and and recognizing that it's not just the food, although the food is an extremely important part, but it's the food, the environment, our behaviors that can totally affect one of the basic elements within our body.

23:05

That is keeping us healthy.

23:07

And so I appreciate you sharing this with us today.

23:10

We're going to really focus on checking out this app.

23:15

That would be great.

23:16

You know, as a nurse myself, I, you know, when I was speaking with you, I know the basics of the microbiome.

23:24

There's so many details.

23:25

So if anyone that's listening to this podcast has more interest, there's so much information.

23:31

This is a, like, very beginner information on the microbiome.

23:36

Quite literally a teaser.

23:38

It is. It's a teaser.

23:40

We hope that you're more intrigued and want to learn more, but so appreciate you sharing this with us today and for our next podcast with Dawn.

23:52

We will be talking about pre and probiotics and how they help us with the microbiome.

24:00

So this is a building block of information for us to be able to take away and live healthier lives.

24:06

And just as a side note, given that this, this is certainly beneficial to anyone, but for those that have faced cancer and cancer treatments, cancer treatments can wreak havoc on your microbiome, your gut health.

24:23

And that's why it is so important for us as cancer survivors, cancer thrivers, cancer patients that are going through to understand this because during treatment it can be a big challenge.

24:37

That certainly post treatment getting to a place where you can get that healthy gut again is paramount.

24:43

So I appreciate you sharing so much with us today, Dawn.

24:47

And we will look forward to our next podcast on pre and probiotics.

24:53

Wonderful.

24:53

I'm looking forward to it.

24:55

Thank you.