Today on the Gut Health Reset Podcast, we are discussing hormones and your gut health with returning guest Esther Blum! Do you know how your gut bacteria affect your hormone levels? The gut and the endocrine system are intimately connected, and imbalances in one can lead to problems in the other. Good gut health is so important for maintaining a healthy balance of hormones, and vice versa. That’s why, in today’s episode, we explore everything from how the microbiome changes for women during menopause, to practical, actionable tips and diet recommendations to help you balance your hormones!

 

We will answer these questions:

– What role does the microbiome play in regulating your hormones?

– Why should we be cautious about high estrogen levels?

– What foods can you use to help balance your hormones?

– Why do women gain weight during menopause?

– What can you do if you’re entering menopause with subpar gut health?

– And more!

 

Still want to learn more? Schedule with Dr. Barter today!

 

Recommended Products From Today’s Show

Binding Fiber Support Capsules

IBS Support Probiotic Powder

 

About Esther Blum:

Esther Blum is the bestselling author of Cavewomen Don’t Get Fat; Eat, Drink and Be Gorgeous; Secrets of Gorgeous, and The Eat, Drink, and Be Gorgeous Project. She was voted Best Nutritionist by Manhattan Magazine. She has appeared on Dr. Oz, TODAY, A Healthy You with Carol Alt, The ISAAC Show, ABC-TV, FOX- 5’s Good Day NY, Fox News Live, and more. She is also an in-demand authority frequently quoted in E!Online, In Touch, Time Magazine, The New York Post, The Los Angeles Times, In Style, Bazaar, Self, Fitness, Marie Claire, and Cosmo.
Esther received a Bachelor of Science in Clinical Nutrition from Simmons College in Boston and is a graduate of New York University, where she received her Master of Science in Clinical Nutrition. Esther is credentialed as a registered dietitian, a certified dietitian-nutritionist, and a Certified Nutrition Specialist (CNS), the certification from the Board for Certification of Nutrition Specialists (BCNS). She is also a member of the American Dietetic Association, Dietitians in Functional Medicine, Nutritionists in Complementary Care, and the Connecticut Dietetic Association.
Esther currently runs a virtual practice where she helps women balance hormones, lose stubborn body fat, and treat the root cause of health struggles. And she lives in CT with her family where she can be found cooking up a storm, going for long hikes, and blasting 80’s music by the fire pit.

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Subscribe for more gut health content and share this podcast with a friend! Take a screenshot of this episode and tag Dr. Ann-Marie Barter:

http://instagram.com/drannmariebarter

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Dr. Ann-Marie Barter is a Functional Medicine and Chiropractic Doctor at Alternative Family Medicine & Chiropractic. She is the clinic founder of Alternative Family Medicine & Chiropractic that has two offices: one in Longmont and one in Denver. They treat an array of health conditions overlooked or under-treated by conventional medicine, called the “grey zone”. https://altfammed.com/

https://drannmariebarter.com/

*As always, this podcast is not designed to diagnose, treat, prevent or cure any condition and is for information purposes only. Please consult with your healthcare professional before making any changes to your current lifestyle.*

 

Transcription:

Esther Blum: [00:00:00] So the healthier your gut is, the better you will handle hormones. And then also I support liver health while we’re cleaning up the gut because the two, our systems are never in isolation. They’re always working in conjunction with each other. [00:00:15][15.3]
Disclaimer: [00:00:16] The information provided in this podcast is educational and not intended to diagnose or treat medical conditions. [00:00:21][5.1]
Intro: [00:00:22] Are you struggling with bloating, gas, constipation and fatigue? But don’t know what’s causing these problems? The Gut Health Reset Podcast with Dr. Ann-Marie Barter dives deep into the root causes behind these issues that start in the gut. This podcast will give you the knowledge you need to heal your gut and reset your health. [00:00:40][17.7]
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter: [00:00:43] Today on the Gut Health Reset Podcast we are going to cover what role gut bacteria play on regulating our hormones. What health issues can arise from high and low estrogen levels. How we can improve our gut health and out of whack hormones at the same time. How suboptimal gut functions can affect a woman’s experience with menopause and how our microbiota changes during menopause. Thank you so much for joining us here today on the Gut Health Reset Podcast. I have a returning guest who has been awesome in today’s conversation is fantastic, so you’re not going to want to miss it. My special guest today is Esther Blum. She is the bestselling author of Women Don’t Get Fat, Eat, Drink and Be Gorgeous. Secrets of the Gorgeous and the Eat, Drink and Be Gorgeous Project. She was voted best nutritionist by Manhattan magazine and she has appeared on Dr. Oz today. Healthy You ABC-TV Fox five Good Day, New York, Fox Live and many more. She is also an in-demand authority frequently quoted on ET online, In Touch, Time magazine and New York Post, and many more. Esther received her master of science in clinical nutrition. She’s credentialed as a registered dietitian, a certified dietitian, nutritionist and a certified nutritionist specialist in certification from nutrition specialists. She is a member of the American Diabetic Association, dieticians and Functional Medicine, Nutritionist and Complementary Care and Connecticut Diabetic Association. She currently runs a virtual practice where she helps women balance hormones, lose stubborn body fat and trace the root cause of health struggles. She lives in Connecticut with her family where she can be found cooking up a storm, going for long hikes and blasting eighties music by the fire pit. Esther, it is great to have you back on the show. Thank you so much for being here. [00:02:47][123.5]
Esther Blum: [00:02:48] Oh, Emory, it’s great to be here with you again. [00:02:49][1.8]
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter: [00:02:50] Well, I’m super psyched about the questions that we’re covering today and the topics. So I want to just dove right into it. So we’re really talking about hormones and gut bacteria today. So what role does the bacteria in our gut play in regulating hormone levels? [00:03:12][21.5]
Esther Blum: [00:03:14] So there is a subset of your microbiome actually called the Esther Bolam. And the job of those subset of bacteria is to help your body metabolize and detoxify estrogen. And so if you ever do stool tests like a GI map on yourself and you’re looking at your beta glick, your rainy days, and that’s elevated, you know, that’s usually a sign that your izabela are not functioning optimally. So you want to make sure that you’re really fueling your gut, not only with anti-inflammatory nutrients, lots of bright colors in your fruit and vegetables, lots of variety in your diet because the gut loves variety and different food. Just like humans get bored eating the same thing over and over. Your gut craves variety to lots of fibers, lots of protein and quality fats. But also you really want to be careful, especially when you are approaching perimenopause and menopause, to really mind your alcohol intake. Because alcohol is not only disruptive to the gut microbiome, but it can raise your circulating estrogen levels for up to 6 hours after you have one cocktail. So you really want to be careful to not be in an estrogen dominated state. And if you’re currently are regular, a regularly menstruating female listening to this, you want to make sure that you’re also watching your alcohol if you especially if you are estrogen dominant because that can really continue to keep your there. [00:04:57][102.8]
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter: [00:04:58] Yeah, that kind of just blows a hole and it’s just a couple drinks kind of a thought process. So why do we care if we have super high estrogen levels? Hmm. [00:05:10][12.7]
Esther Blum: [00:05:11] Super high estrogen levels can make you pretty miserable. Lots of breast tenderness, irritability, moodiness, bad cramp, heavy periods, blood clots, you know, passing through. And so it’s really not fun to live that way month after month. It can be debilitating for lots of women where they feel like they can’t get out of bed for one or two days a month. And so we really want to make sure that we are detoxing. Metabolizing estrogen and it’s not building up. And also, if you are on bioidentical hormones, then you also want to make sure that you’re really careful regulating your estrogen levels. You don’t want to be in an estrogen dominant state when you’re on bioidentical hormones either. The same symptoms can happen. [00:06:07][55.4]
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter: [00:06:08] So what about weight? With estrogen? [00:06:11][2.5]
Esther Blum: [00:06:12] Yes, weight, absolutely. It’s such a great point I neglected to mention. But yes, it can make weight loss very challenging. If you’re estrogen dominant, it just turns you much more into a fat storage machine than a fat burning machine. So the the ratio, when you have the right ratios of estrogen to progesterone, to testosterone, that’s kind of that really magical cocktail where you can build muscle and lose body fat and that being an estrogen dominant state can alter cortisol levels and make it really hard to burn fat. [00:06:48][35.6]
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter: [00:06:49] So that brings a great point up. When you said HRT, really watch your ratio, see what’s going on. Are hormone replacement therapy or bioidentical whatever you’re doing? I don’t I don’t know about you, but one common problem that I see or a common question that I see in practice is, hey, I went on, I went on bioidentical as I went on hormone replacement therapy and I gained weight. And that’s exactly what you’re speaking to. And I can’t lose it. Is that correct? [00:07:21][31.3]
Esther Blum: [00:07:22] Yeah. Some people gain weight on HRT. For the majority of people, it’s a couple pounds. It’s not, you know, I’m talking £3, five max. Three months is really the magic window for that. When your body adjusts and the weight does come up. I can tell you personally, when I started adding in just progesterone, just an upright, identical progesterone Cherokee, you know, my breasts definitely went up a size and were huge and painful. And I was like, what is going on? And, you know, I treated myself and worked with my doctor and went on nutrients to just help my liver push them down a more optimal pathway. So I went on the complex and cruciferous concentrates like brussel sprouts and kale in a supplement form. And really I don’t drink caffeine and I’m careful with alcohol. And then I noticed a significant shift. All the breast tenderness and the swelling went away. For other people, however, who really do gain a lot of weight and don’t lose it, you know, you need to do some investigative work and some testing. I not only use the GI map in practice, but I also use the Dutch test. This is a dried urine test for comprehensive hormones and it’s going to look at phase one and two of your detoxification pathways to see how you’re methylated and see how your liver is moving the hormones through or if it’s moving through. If your ratios of estrogen are much higher than your progesterone, then you may not need estrogen initially. You may actually need to if you’re in perimenopause, not menopause, but you’re in perimenopause, you might need some dimm. That’s Diane math. All these are concentrates of cruciferous vegetables. And you may need to just add in progesterone first to oppose that estrogen. And then phase three of detoxification happens in your gut. So you have to make sure you’re pooping every day. I would eat fibers that are going to bind hormones and pull them out like chia or flaxseeds or chia pudding or flax pudding. You know, getting those nutrients in there can really make a huge difference in your diet. Add me in your hormone balance so that you do metabolize hormones and they are given in the correct ratios. And once you start HRT, you do need to work with a doctor and get your blood tested. You know, from your initial start, you need to get your blood checked within 6 to 8 weeks and then every 3 to 4 months thereafter for the rest of your course on hormones, it’s like thyroid medication. You know, you’ve got to make sure that the hormone is saturating at the tissue level. And it’s no different for estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. And with estrogen with hormone replacement therapy, you do want to make sure that your levels are really saturating your tissues just for bone density benefits and cognitive benefits and heart disease prevention so it can be really beneficial. The other thing you may want to consider if you’re gaining weight on hormones is the quality of the hormones. Are you on synthetic? Are you on bioidentical and bioidentical? Have a very different function physiologically. They’re much more compatible. They hit at just around that is bioidentical hits up the dopamine receptors in the brain and it quells anxiety takes that edge off that mental rage that we get and synthetic progestins do not touch brain biochemist. So it’s really important that you look at the quality. Also, synthetic HRT is often given in a pill form that has to pass through your liver and gut. But if you’re on a bioidentical, you can often have different delivery systems that bypass the liver and get and absorb. So either topical in the form of a cream or a gel or a patch and then progesterone, you can give it as a stroke that dissolves between the cheek and the gum at bedtime. And so that really helps with sleep, too. So there’s all sorts of tweaking that really needs to occur for a lot of people with HRT. It’s not uncommon, but you do. Circling back to this conversation, you do want to make sure your gut and your liver are really functioning optimally first. [00:11:55][273.3]
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter: [00:11:56] So we really have the hidden high estrogen levels. And what we’re seeing with that, what happens to our microbiota and low estrogen levels? What are we going to see. [00:12:06][10.1]
Esther Blum: [00:12:08] With low estrogen levels? You can see an increase in bloating, gut permeability reflux because estrogen and progesterone really protect the integrity of the gut. While I often see an uptick in age pylori as well and H. Pylori loves to suppress the production of stomach acid because stomach acid, hydrochloric acid acts as a firewall and it keeps out candida and it keeps out h. Pylori And it keeps out, you know, harmful bacteria that pathogenic bacteria that otherwise should not be there. And once H. Pylori sets up camp, it totally imagine, like turning a faucet off so all the water dries up. Right. So H pylori can just happily camp out and make a home there and welcome in as well. All the candida and pathogenic bacteria. And so once as long as you know if you’re going through perimenopause or menopause or or you’re estrogen dominant and you’re seeing a real imbalance in your gut health, then again, you first you want to eliminate H. Pylori, you may want to that’s phase one. You may want to also then do kind of an antimicrobial, broad spectrum antifungal protocol. And I’m using only nutrients with these, not drugs. And then phase three is really rebuilding the gut while repopulating with stomach acid, giving high doses of probiotics and lots of anti-inflammatory healing and sealing nutrients and foods. There’s slippery elm, there’s marshmallow root, there’s glutamine, there’s zinc. Harnessing all of these nutrients really help repair and restore gut health. [00:14:04][116.9]
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter: [00:14:06] So what does someone do if they’re like, oh, my goodness, I have low, high estrogen, I have low progesterone, I have low testosterone, and I have got issues like what? What do I do? Where do I start and how do I go down this road and really tackle this? [00:14:24][18.2]
Esther Blum: [00:14:26] So the healthier your gut is, the better you will handle hormones. So we do I do a combination first. Again, I restore gut health, we weed and reseed and clean out the bacterial imbalances that don’t belong there and heal and seal up the gut wall. If someone has high beta glucan arantes, they’ve got a lot of inflammation. They’re not detoxing estrogen well, depending on where they are in their menopausal journey. You know, again, we can give cruciferous concentrates to help push estrogen down. The right pathways can certainly give a b-complex. I feel like every person should be on a b-complex once they’re on hormones, but I just love it for adrenal health and energy and stress management anyway. And then also I support liver health while we’re cleaning up the gut because the two, our systems are never in isolation. They’re always working in conjunction with each other. So. Eating lots of cruciferous vegetables are really important. So the Brassica family foods like broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, radishes, artichokes are also really beneficial. Kale is beneficial. So eating really good quality vegetables to support liver detoxification is really important. I’m a big fan of cooking your own bone broth. I have a really simple recipe. I call it estas bang and bone broth. And it’s really just to either get chicken feet and get like 2 to £3 of chicken feet or I get 2 to £3 of knuckle and neck bones from beef or really any animal you can go to a butcher that sells pastured meats or you can buy them online. Whole Foods, you can find lots of sources of bones from pastured animals. And I throw it in a slow cooker. I dump over a quarter cup of vinegar. If it’s the if it’s beef bones, if it’s chicken, I cut it up to lemon halves. Throw that in because the acid pulls the college in and trace minerals out of the bones into the broth. And then I’ll throw in a couple of carrots and onions and celery. Parsley. If it’s chicken broth, I love down and water and a tablespoon and a half of sea salt and I just cook it on low for 19 hours and you want to cook it on low because high heat boiling destroys and breaks the collagen strands in there. So by the time my meat broth is done and cooled and I put it in a mason jar in the fridge, it turns into meat jello like I can stand a spoon in there. It’s so nice and thick. And so that collagen is so rich in glycine and amino acids and it really heals up and seals the wall. So, you know, also, if your guts really inflamed, you may want to stick to more cooked vegetables are steamed or roasted or pureed like in a soup because that’s just a lot easier for your body to digest while you’re transitioning and healing your body. And also periods of fasting, like intermittent fasting, can also be really nice for the gut because you’re not continually exposing your gut to food that it has to process and metabolize. So being really gentle with your gut can be super helpful. And just one other thing I want to mention that really doesn’t get talked about a lot. Is putting your body in a sympathetic state when you eat. Most of us are just chowing down quick, hustling on the run. Have to get to work. Have to get the kids to school. I call that dashboard dining where people are like eating in their cars, traveling all day, working, working, working in front of screens. Your body is in a fight or flight state in those times. So when you’re in a state of fight or flight. The last thing your body really wants to do is send blood to your stomach and your intestines to digest. It wants to send blood to your extremities to run like hell from all the danger that it’s perceiving from your brain and your nervous system. So taking about three deep breaths before you sit and eat, sitting down in front of a meal, put your phone in a different room. It will transform your eating experience, but also improve your digestion. [00:19:10][284.2]
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter: [00:19:13] Hey, this is Dr. Ann-Marie Barter. Have you ever spent hours searching for the right supplements to heal your body? And when you finally found them, maybe you weren’t sure was a brand that you could trust or if the products were safe. After hearing about these issues time and time again, I decided to put together a complete store of supplements for healing and supporting your gut. At Dr Ann-Marie Barter.com, there are supplements for constipation, thyroid health, gut, health, energy, and so much more. There are bundles created for sleep support, pain support, histamine support, and the list just goes on and on. These supplements I use personally or I’ve handpicked because they’ve worked time and time again on countless cases in the office and on the website, you can see what ingredients we use to put your mind at ease. If you visit Dr Ann-Marie Barter.com and use the promo code podcast to get 10% off your next order. So what are you waiting for? Go visit Dr. Ann-Marie Barter and get 10% off your supplement bundle. Ciao. And now back to our episode. Awesome. And I love that we’ve kind of roped everybody together. Menopause, perimenopause, menopause, it’s kind of all been roped in there. But I want to just take a second and separate out menopause, because I think it’s just a big shock when women hit menopause. It’s like, what? What is going on? Why does anybody talk about this? I didn’t really realize what I was going to experience. This is kind of a big surprise. So what happens if you have suboptimal gut function going into menopause? [00:21:07][113.7]
Esther Blum: [00:21:08] Yeah, and this is why I wrote my book The Later Obvious Later, because it tells you everything you need to know to get through menopause. So if your gut is suboptimal. Yes. You’re not going to detox your hormones. Well, you’re going to feel really inflamed and you can actually feel worse if your gut is and your liver is not in a great place. So if I work with someone and they do have a fatty liver and their detox pathways and their gut function are really subpar, we don’t even introduce hormone therapy until the big rocks are cleaned up. You’ve got to you know, you can’t I would say you can’t out hormone your lifestyle choices. Right. You have to have functioning gut health. You need to eliminate a poop every day, once or twice a day. You can’t be constipated and backed up because your hormones will get backed up if they are not exiting your body. Hormones should be like a gently moving stream and just keep what you put in. It must come out. They should not be like a stagnant pond just sitting there. So if your gut health is subpar, you’re going to feel worse, for you can still stay in a very estrogen dominated state. Or you can have a lot of weight gain or you can feel more irritable or, you know, all sorts of side effects. Some people say their emotional state really changes. They describe themselves as going crazy, which we never want anyone to feel that way, ever. That’s never the goal. And I also want you to think about, again, your delivery system. And I just want to take a minute to be very careful. I really do not recommend hormone pellets for this very reason, because hormone pellets are a it’s a surgical procedure. They have to physically be looked at. The doctor inserting them has to carve out a little tunnel in your tush it under the skin to insert these pellets. There is not a single clinical study done on hormone pellet therapy. It is very expensive. And what happens is it jacks up your hormones to a very high level, which will have you feeling amazing at first. For some women, for other women like the clients I see, they come to me frustrated because they’ve gained £10. What feels like overnight on palettes. They felt great initially, but you know, their energy really improved and cognitive function and mental focus improved. But then the minute those pellet levels start to decrease, you feel crappy again. You feel the withdrawal even though your hormone levels are so much higher than your actual baseline. So when you do go on HRT, it should be given at a dose. That’s about a fifth of what a birth control pill should be. We don’t need our bodies to be have a robust hormone curve and a robust progesterone bump to carry a baby. At this point, you don’t need to ovulate. You don’t need to carry a baby. So it’s just enough to offset chronic disease and help you get your energy and your vitality back. So, yes, you want your gut health to be optimal before you start, but you also want to make sure you’re on the right dosage, the right delivery system that’s really compatible with you. And bear in mind to you’re nobody. People don’t always get it right on the first try. With hormones, there is an adjustment period when you go on. And if you start in perimenopause, which I’m a huge proponent of, by the way, to offset your menopausal symptoms, then as you go into menopause, you’re still going to need to readjust. Like you’ll feel really amazing for a while. And then when your estrogen starts to bottom out, you’re like, Oh my God, I’m exhausted all over again. Go back to your doctor. Have your doctor adjust your dose. You know, it’s it’s a bit of a moving part. Your body will lead you in this process. So your job is to partner with your body and partner with a good prescribing physician. So you feel really good in the process. [00:25:43][274.8]
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter: [00:25:44] So why do we gain weight in menopause previous to why are we gaining weight? Is the diet to say the exercise routine is the same? And I think that that’s one of the biggest, most frustrating comments that I hear from women. What is going on. [00:26:00][16.0]
Esther Blum: [00:26:02] So as your estrogen and progesterone and testosterone decline, your insulin levels start to fluctuate wildly. You are far less insulin sensitive. It’s like the second half of your cycle, right? When you’re menstruating, that PMS phase can be really wicked for a lot of women, right? We get our cravings, we get irritability, we’re exhausted. That’s what happens full time in menopause. For a lot of women, they experience those symptoms. So we again, we get cravings. Our cortisol also can come up and be, you know, once you’re in a cortisol dominant state, you’re going to get that muffin top or your muffin top turns into a cake top. So you really do need to manage your insulin and cortisol. And the good news is you can do a lot of it with diet. The hormones absolutely support that. You can do a lot with diet and lifestyle. So first things first, you want to make sure that you are these are my three nano laws for weight loss. Number one is you want to optimize your protein intake. Optimal protein intake is one gram per pound of ideal body weight. So if you are five foot five, your ideal by weight 125. Now, you may weigh 150, you may weigh 110, but you want to focus on ideal body weight. There’s seven. In grams of protein in an ounce, then it works out probably to about 18 ounces a day, which is just over a pound of protein. So you figure £5, five ounces of protein, three meals a day, you’re going to roughly hit your goals. Number two, you want your protein ratios to be higher than your carbs. So that means if you’re eating and I recommend people just spend a week or two tracking in MyFitnessPal so you can just see what your numbers look like or any free app you choose and you’re getting 125 grams of protein. Then you want to make sure that it’s higher than your carbon intake. So maybe your carb intake should be 110 grams. Most of us are overeating carbs anyway, unless you’re really lifting weights and physical and physically active. Most of us are pretty sedentary, don’t need as many carbs as we think. Okay, so already you’re going to balance out your insulin levels, but you’re also eating more protein and having less carbs than protein. That alone changes your brain biochemistry. It shuts off hunger in the brain when your blood sugar is balanced and when you’re getting optimal protein. Most people can easily starve down like a sleeve of Oreos, but nobody is bingeing on half a cow like you. Just your brain signals fullness when you’re eating a lot of protein. So your cravings go away. Your serotonin dopamine come up with high protein, especially in the morning at breakfast. So all of that immediately gets your eating and hunger under control. But the other thing it does is it really helps with sleep. And a lot of weight gain comes in perimenopause, a mad pause because of the sleep disruption from a decline in progesterone. So when you balance your blood sugar, it helps with sleep disruption. It helps control hot flashes much better. So all of those pieces come into play. And my favorite loss of all is to eat carbs at night. Have heavy protein during the day and have a cup of rice or beans or lentils for dinner or a sweet potato or white potato. Those will increase your insulin, but in doing so will decrease your cortisol. The two are antagonistic to each other, so in that state you’re actually going to conk out and sleep much better. And when you sleep better, you correct a lot of insulin resistance and cravings that you get, you know, the night after of course, after a night sleep. [00:30:12][249.5]
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter: [00:30:13] Awesome. And then how does a microbiome change during menopause? [00:30:17][4.0]
Esther Blum: [00:30:19] Yes. So as we discussed, the microbiome is going to be disrupted with a decrease in estrogen and progesterone because you can get, you know, a total shift in the gut bacteria if you have a decline in stomach acid. Unhealthy bacteria can overgrow. You can also get a thinning of the intestinal walls, making it semi permeable so you can get a leaky gut where undigested food is really passing back and forth across the gut wall. So all of that is very disruptive and can create a cascade of inflammation in the gut. Often I get a high histamine response from women going through perimenopause or menopause. I see very high levels of a bacteria called Morgan Ella. And so they’re getting all of a sudden like sinusitis and bad allergies and a lot of joint aches. So we really try to, again, optimize optimize that digestive fire. Your stomach should be like a cauldron of acid. Right. And we also want to optimize stomach acid for bone density. You cannot absorb your trace minerals like calcium, boron, magnesium and zinc, which are all very bone friendly. If you don’t have enough stomach acid in your ear or an acidic environment, have it in your intestinal tract. So all of those pieces really need to come into play. And, you know, it’s so that is another reason why I like women to do early intervention when it comes to hormone replenishment, because that can really help rebalance the gut. [00:32:09][110.5]
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter: [00:32:12] One of the big pieces that you hit on that I think is really not quite talked about very much is the histamine that’s happening. When we hit menopause, where people suddenly develop sinusitis, it is they develop allergies that they didn’t have before, which they’re like, what happened? Why am I so sensitive to suddenly name it environmental allergies? Or more so, or airborne allergies or more so, food allergies, etc.. It really hits with the changing of hormones. [00:32:46][34.9]
Esther Blum: [00:32:48] Yeah, it really does. And again. I know that it’s temporary. You can certainly take, you know, some quercetin and nettles and turmeric to really get that inflammatory response down. You don’t have to take like Claritin or Allegra. Those nutrients work equally well. But you could also do a neti pot, if you like, every night. Just that’s just a nice, gentle nasal wash that you can back in the day. Like you had to manually do it with a pot. Now there’s all these nice chat machines that you just stick up your nose and they flush the water through your nasal cavities. But you again, once you rebalance your gut and you really put in good, healthy probiotics, butyrate butyrate producers are also really beneficial for gut health and really allowing the bacteria and the gut to colonize. Those are also really beneficial. I love lots of Red Foods to help support Akkermansia, which is a really beneficial bacteria. So polyphenols, red grapes, pomegranate seeds, cherries, raspberries, strawberries. Those are also really, really beneficial to get in the diet. Those are like some of my most favorite probiotic foods, and they’re usually sweet, which I love, too. [00:34:14][86.7]
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter: [00:34:16] Wonderful. Well, this has been an amazing talk, and I think it’s really just a bridge between hormones and gut and a lot of issues that so many women are struggling with. So where can people find you and find your book? [00:34:31][15.1]
Esther Blum: [00:34:32] Yes. So I have a gift for your listeners today. You can download my happy hormone cocktail. You go to Esther Bloom dot com forward slash cocktail and you’re going to get on the priority notification for my book release as well. So and you can also follow me on Instagram at Gorgeous Esther. [00:34:56][24.2]
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter: [00:34:58] All right. Well, thank you so much for being here. It was just so fun to have you on today. [00:35:02][4.2]
Esther Blum: [00:35:02] Thanks Ann-Marie, I appreciate you. [00:35:04][1.4]
Intro: [00:35:07] Thank you for listening to the Gut Health Reset Podcast. Please make sure you subscribe. Leave a rating and a review. The more people can hear about the podcast and hey, take a screenshot of this episode and tag Dr. Ann-Marie on Instagram or Facebook at Dr. Ann-Marie Barter. And for more resources. Just visit Dr. Ann-Marie Barter. [00:35:07][0.0]
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