Gut Bacteria

Nutrition Experts Podcast Episode 35 Low FODMAP Diets and IBS with Bethany Frazier MS, RD, LD

December 31, 2018 by matheaford Leave a Comment

Bethany Frazier is the voice behind the Kansas City Dietitian. The name, The Kansas City Dietitian was actually kind of an inheritance. Her mom is also a dietitian and passed down the name when she retired. She have always loved to cook and experiment in the kitchen. Although she grew up in the presence of an amazing dietitian, she didn’t just fall into it. In fact, it took her a while to come around to it. She started her career in corporate wellness and realized that if her real goal was to help people she needed some specific training. That is when she decided to return to school to become a dietitian.

She have called Kansas City home for over 20 years. She and her husband have made their home in Kansas City with their two children and their sweet pup.

As the Kansas City Dietitian, she coach individual clients, provide corporate wellness opportunities, serve as a media spokesperson and blog every once in a while. Her specialities are: IBS, the Low FODMAPS diet, GI Issues, picky eating, sports nutrition, and weight management (mindful eating).

Contact Bethany to get started on your journey towards better health through https://www.kansascitydietitian.com/contact-bethany/

Mathea Ford: [00:00:27] Hi there! It’s Mathea. Welcome back to the Nutrition Experts Podcast. The podcast featuring nutrition experts who are leading the way using food starts today right now with our next guest. It’s great to have Bethany Frazier on the show today. Bethany, welcome to Nutrition Experts.

Bethany Frazier: [00:00:44] Thanks for having me.

Mathea Ford: [00:00:46] I’m excited to have you on the show and share your expertise with my tribe. So, Bethany let’s start out with letting you tell my listeners a little more about you and what you do.

Bethany Frazier: [00:00:56] Yeah. So, I’m a private practice dietitian. I’ve been a Registered Dietitian. Mostly, it was actually five years. I have a private practice in Kansas City. I mostly deal with probably about 75 percent of the patients that I see are for gut health problems. And then I also do some consulting work. I have two children – I have a one year old and a three year old. So when I’m not working or while I’m working maybe sometimes too I’m busy chasing them around. That’s the little thing that in my life in Kansas City.

Mathea Ford: [00:01:28] I’m so excited to talk to you today because you mentioned you talk about Gut Health. What do you mean when you say Gut Health?

Bethany Frazier: [00:01:36] Well that’s a pretty loaded question. There is a lot of it seems like you just type in gut health or you just are scrolling through your Facebook feed or interim feed and there’s going to be someone telling you to do something about that health. I think it’s because it’s changing so quickly and realizing that a lot of what we do can influence our gut health and just how we feel in general. So, gut health can be everything from the actual bacteria together present like that. So a lot people think of probiotics all the way to explain how your gut function. So, then not a bad or best in it. Then how your stomach contracts the program or your stomach and your intestines contract and then the symptoms are usually what people know. So anything from your mouth down from reflux or heartburn, dtomach pain, some bloating gas, diarrhea, constipation all the fun things that we see on the infomercial that seems like…

Mathea Ford: [00:02:27] When people come to you what are their typical things that they’re wanting to see you for? Does their doctor refer them? Do they find you?

Bethany Frazier: [00:02:36] I think I see a pretty healthy mix of both. It’s not uncommon. Most people will have at least been to their doctor and they have tried to get some idea of what they should do to improve their symptoms. I usually tell people because people will come to me in desperation and that’s usually what happens. People don’t come to me because from my gut health standpoint. They don’t come to me because they want to prevent it. Usually they’re coming to me because they’ve tried everything else. They Googled every answer and nothing is working. So they’re at that point where they need an expert and they need an intervention now. So, sometimes their doctors will refer to me as well. I have a couple of practitioners that I work with in Kansas City that will work for me knowing that I can help their patients. The doctors also are now realizing that a lot of our symptoms can be at least helped, sometimes alleviated, sometimes completely improved or balanced that with medications that they’re recommending through the diet but they often don’t have time and they don’t send them tons of specifics on what to do. So sometimes the doctor will for a month sometimes the patient will say “I went to the doctor and they pretty much said you know just help your symptoms along and they didn’t give me any other any other resources but I’m trying to help my symptoms and I think diet can help some.” So, their own advocate just kind of all across the board that that’s at my doorstep saying “I need help. How can I feel better?”

Mathea Ford: [00:03:59] So, is that something that you would refer to in general as like irritable bowel? Or what people are coming to seec you for? Or is that in general what you work with?

Bethany Frazier: [00:04:10] I occasionally will see some patients that have more of a definitive diagnosis so like IBD, would be Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis. But sometimes will see patients like that, sometimes I’ll see patients that have like GERD or reflux one of those gastritis but IBS is pretty common it is an actual diagnosis. If you probably talked to any of your friends they’re like “oh I have IBS or irritable bowel syndrome.” I really estimated that about twelve percent of the population worldwide actually has a diagnosed version of IBS and there’s a couple of criteria that physicians or experts will use to diagnose IBS. So, I don’t I can’t say diagnosis of the dietitian IBS but patients will come to me either they’ve diagnosed themselves. But the actual criteria for being diagnosed with IBS is that you have to have pain or discomfort one day per week over the last three months. And then, so that’s the overarching umbrella. And then you have two out of these three symptoms which are pain during a bowel movement, a change in your stool frequency or a change in the appearance of your stool. So, atleast two out of those three things is be classified as an actual diagnosis of IBS.

Mathea Ford: [00:05:27] People have come to you and say “I have IBS or I think I have IBS.” If they haven’t been diagnosed, what are the symptoms that they’re experiencing?

Bethany Frazier: [00:05:36] Anything across the board. I’ve had everything from people who have headaches or fatigue to bloating. Again, coz people usually come to me when they’re in dire straits but they haven’t. Nothing else has worked. Usually they have at least one bowel problem. Either they’ve had an increase in frequency, they went from being every other day to multiple times a day or sometimes the opposite. They went from being once or twice a day to once a week. So, flipping back and forth between those sometimes cycling back and forth between diarrhea and constipation. Sometimes it will just be bloating after they have a meal that’s where I think people will start to realize “oh what I’m eating might be impacting my bowel habits” because they will say “I eat something and then I’m bloated but I refresh it and I can’t figure out what it is. I’ve taken out all the foods that I can think of it could possibly be. I eat really healthy.” All of those criteria they’ll say “I did it myself and I’m still having the bloating after I eat or I’m having reflux sometimes after I eat.” Sometimes pain. Pain will be another symptoms that people often will say some pain either in their stomach and you were along, cramping along their intestines sometimes. What they’ll say is leathal and usually it’s influencing their life. So, it’s making them stay in bed. Maybe it’s making them not fearing being away from a toilet. So, they need to be close at all times which can definitely influence your life and the choices that you make. Whether you’re able to travel; whether you are able to go to kids baseball games when there’s no bathroom close. So, usually it’s impeded in their life and that’s their saying “I can’t go on with this” and there’s plenty of people who are living with probably mild symptoms. I think usually what I tell people is that over the course of about 10 years its when your symptoms develop. Sometimes it’s one thing that really sets it off. You’ll get approximate you’ll have either hormonal fluctuation or you’ll have an event that happens. You get the stomachache bug,you get maybe food poisoning something like that actually shift and then all of a sudden you’re like “I just can’t bounce back from this. I don’t know what’s wrong with me” but usually we can point to some or a very stressful occurrence that they just can’t bounce back from. And then so that’s not uncommon that that’s where it will start. But usually people who are more in the gradual that they have slowly developed those problems over about 10 years where they almost think “I can’t remember the last time I had a regular bowel movement.” So they don’t think about it until it becomes very problematic.

Mathea Ford: [00:08:13] So, IBS is not the same as you said Crohn’s, is there celiac all that it’s completely different?

Bethany Frazier: [00:08:22] It’s different. It’s not completely separate in the treatment we would do of it. And so Celiac is actually an auto immune disease and so the IBD categories the Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis so they are have that immune function to act as most people know cannot have any gluten in their diet and IBS patients often will do in elimination any food with Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis. Because gluten can be inflammatory for some people. It’s not for everyone but it can be inflammatory for some people so that can transpose all those categories we were talking about removing gluten but for people that have IBS it’s not always gluten that’s going to be the trigger for them or wheat that’s going to be the trigger for them so you have to be cautious in that because you want to make sure that you’re having good nutritional diversity and that’s challenging with someone that has celiac often that’s their only symptom. They can have complete symptom resolve just by maintaining a gluten free diet. There are times where they have to have a couple extra layers and that’s where you might implement some of the other IBS related interventions which would be appropriate for people in ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s. They sometimes will use the same interventions for dietary interventions for managing IBS not when they’re in their play areas but during their kind of day to day life they might use some of the other dietary things that IBS patients will try and implement.

Mathea Ford: [00:09:52] So, Bethany what are their general recommendations for people with IBS? What type of treatment do you usually do with them?

Bethany Frazier: [00:10:00] It depends on the patient. From a if they’ve gone to see their doctor then some are they’re on medications that are supposed to alleviate their symptoms. Everything from an antidepressant because they’re trying to manage that gut brain to an antibiotic that’s often question especially if they’re affecting maybe a SIBO or that small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. So, that might be an intervention that a patient might come to me on. Sometimes, their doctors have tried to do some just symptom management. So, diarrhea just taking immodium or something like that. Or they might come with you like a laxative for constipation. Those types of things that’s often that they’ll come in with those on. Sometimes their doctors will even recommend something like follow a “get rid of all your dairy and your wheat.” Do some sort of elimination diet. And with my patients depending on what their symptoms are that they present in and so it’s really specific to the patient. But I find that probably close to anecdotally, totally anecdotally but I feel like close to 75% of the patients that I have see that have IBS will respond really positively to the Low FODMAP diet. And so that’s been… That’s usually I do some variation and that I’ll even have patients that are referred to me because they have crypto sensitivity which can cause some IBS. The diagnosis is actually a rule out diagnosis so that means they’ve figured, they’ve tried everything else and you don’t test positive on any other. There’s no other reason you are having these symptoms. And one of those rule out diagnosis is fructose malabsorption and so they can test for that and they can say “yes, you have it or no you don’t.” And so sometimes people won’t have got all the way to earliest diagnosis because they had fructose malabsorption so similar criteria will say “Oh can you alleviate all your symptoms with right removing fructose from your diet or eliminate fructose in your diet. And if they can’t then we might edge them for the FODMAP diet to see if that or a low FODMAP diet to see if that will alleviate their symptoms. There’s lots of that’s a little bit more restrictive. So people that can not be on quite a restrictive a diet we might just suggest. So if there’s someone that has lots of constipation we might talk about increasing their water or decreasing their caffeine, having more fiber in their diet consistently and seeing if that alleviates the symptom. Of course we don’t want them on a restrictive diet. Any sort of restrictive diet long term if they don’t have to be. So my goal is always to try and find the least restrictive version of a diet that they can follow to alleviate their symptoms get some of essentially some of the inflammation down so that we can really see what the root cause of why they’re having these symptoms and how we can prevent them long term.

Mathea Ford: [00:12:48] I totally agree with you there about the least restrictive diet. People come and talk to me about kidney disease and they’re like “I’ve cut out potassium and phosphorous” and I’m like “did your doctor tell you you had to do that?” So because I’m like that’s just making it more complicated if you start simple. So you did mention a low FODMAP diet and for our listeners what does FODMAP stand for and what is it?

Bethany Frazier: [00:13:13] So, the low FODMAP diet is actually based of carbohydrates that are in the food that we eat and fibers that are either poorly digested or slowly digested and can cause symptoms. They actually they’re small and they can cause action and they cause extra water to be pulled into your gut and the FODMAP stands for Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides And Polyols. What letter was that? So, those are just fancy terms for carbohydrates basically so you oligosaccharides would be things like wheat, onion, garlic. The disaccharides, the most popular one is lactose. About 70% of people actually have difficulty digesting lactose which is in the sugar that’s in milk. Monosaccharides, one that we usually are concerned about is fructose that I mentioned fructose malabsorption. So, this pulls actually extra water in the gut and it’s really not too much of a problem for some of our fruits. This is the fruit sugar. As long as it has equal parts with glucose and other sugar. Some things that most would be in would be things like honey that’s a popular culprit especially for people that think they’re eating really healthy. They’ll say “I eat really healthy. There’s subbing out their regular table sugar for honey and that’s a higher in fructose. So, high fructose corn syrup obviously its high in fructose you can guess that by the name. Apples, pears, mangoes are some popular fruits that are also really high fructose and then Polyols are sugar alcohols which could be artificially and things like mints or gum that someone’s chewing a lot of mints or gum especially if they’re having symptoms they often will think “oh I feel a little bit better when I have sugar free mint” and that can be actually making your symptoms worse. And then the two naturally occurring sorbitol, xylitol and mannitol which are in our stone fruit like peaches and plums and then cauliflowers another one. So, you can see that a lot of the foods that are in these different categories are healthy foods that we should include in our diet on a regular basis like our fruits and vegetables and even more like garlic touted for helping with heart disease. So things like that that were spread that message but it can be very problematic for people that struggle in this IBS category because the belief no one really knows. I don’t think that they have a complete idea at least. I don’t have a clear idea but they think that people that struggle and with hese FODMAP food that’s not necessarily that they are absorbing them differently. Sometimes it is but usually its their sensitivity to that. So, most people if they eat these foods they’re actually going to respond. They’re fully digested but these people are sensitive to that sensation and it causes them problems. So with all all that connection of how your body is working all together to cause you actually worst symptoms.

Mathea Ford: [00:16:10] How do you do the low FODMAP diet with someone? Do you just eliminate everything in the beginning and then add them back a little bit to see how people respond or how does that go?

Bethany Frazier: [00:16:22] The low FODMAPdiet is not meant to be a permanent diet because it’s so restrictive. So, our goal is to get you back to the least restrictive version. There might be a couple trigger foods or trigger categories. But for most people I find they might respond to one category but they’re going to be able to have most of the food. That’s usually a layering about having too much in one day. We don’t know that until we’ve removed them from your diet. So, usually what I do is I require at least 10 days of following a very pretty strict elimination diet that doesn’t have any or very few FODMAP in it. And I think 10 days just I feel like people are more compliant when it’s just 10 days. Some experts will say up to six weeks if that ten days they are not improving. I want to know so that I can move them on to different intervention but if at 10 days they’re improving then we can continue on a little bit longer until their symptoms are mostly managed and then we can start systematically reintroducing the food and seeing what their responses are. So, the goal is to see which foods they’re responding to negatively and be able to pinpoint those so that they can understand those foods are probably going to be problematic for them in the long run but get them also the best case scenario afterward then we usually do some sort of gut feeling to make sure that that inflammation is reduced and they can move forward and not feel like they have to be on this restricted diet forever.

Mathea Ford: [00:17:54] It probably takes a lot of work and intervention for them to kind of get those things out but then do you find most people at the beginning of that at least after those 10 days they’ve got relief from their symptoms and they’re able to clearly identify by adding them back in what is causing the problems?

Bethany Frazier: [00:18:11] Usually. So, it’s a kind of a long process or it can be a long process. We want to really identify those things but usually people can help to identify which foods are problematic and if they have a little bit sometimes it’s too much of a layering effect. So, some of the foods that are okay on the low FODMAP list or elimination they actually have a little bit. So, someone who says “I’m going to go or accidentally buy the wrong peanut butter that has high fructose corn syrup in it or they’re having too much sugar.” Sugar is allowed but too much sugar not necessarily FODMAP but can cause problems for our gut. So, sometimes or a lot of extra stress. They’re traveling for work and they don’t know exactly what’s in their food or they’re just stressed in general that they’re not sleeping enough. So, there’s lots of different factors that we’re trying to evaluate to see why they’re responding to these foods but I find that in general most people by the end of the process have their symptoms pretty well under control and can manage them from a low FODMAP standpoint to be able to move forward and kind of make some of those adjustments their diet that aren’t going to be life altering.

Mathea Ford: [00:19:19] So, if somebody is maybe got a little bit of a problem with their stomach or they’re constipated or they’re having diarrhea but they’re not necessarily to the level of IBS. Are there some general guides that you tell people to have good gut health foods that they should eat ways they should eat that would help them to just possibly improve some of that?

Bethany Frazier: [00:19:44] Yes. I think we have to. Our interventions have to start all the way from our lifestyle to looking at how much you’re sleeping. There’s a lot of research for what our sleep habits do. So,, how much are sleeping and when you’re sleeping and the exercise we’re getting if you’re someone that’s a chronic. So, I’m not a long distance runner. People that are marathon runners or that do prospect of high intensity making sure you’re allowing your body adequate rest can influence or get help. Those are simple lifestyle factors that you need to kind of go into the equation and your stress. How can you help manage your stress so that that’s not negatively influencing your gut. And then we can move on to talking about food and some of the foods we want to talk about are anti-inflammatory foods. So, things like fatty fish, salmon, or nuts and seeds are usually anti-inflammatory for most people and there are fruits and vegetables are going to be anti-inflammatory for most people and then putting in good bacteria. The good bacteria would be things like a probiotic potentially but eating the fermented food are even better for people that are not struggling with really bad stomach issues. I usually try and start with “let’s talk about our foods and how we can make sure our foods are providing what we need.” So, things like yogurt or kefir or kombucha is really popular, sauerkraut or kimchi those types of things. Having them on a regular basis to introduce those good probiotic and then some of the pre-biotic which can be some of extra fibers that actually feed the gut bacteria. So, doing a little bit of a overhaul from your gut to make sure that you’re getting the right food.

Mathea Ford: [00:21:26] If thinking about like healthcare and you mentioned that doctors do studies or they do labs or tests and then do some diagnosis but that IBS is kind of that elimination like you said like we can’t figure out anything else why you’re having these symptoms. How do you see it affecting healthcare? Do you see this group of people who have IBS growing? Do you see it being managed better? How do you see it affecting health care?

Bethany Frazier: [00:21:55] I think it’s definitely growing. Like I said some of the lifestyle things that we’re doing and our diet in general are not doing any favor. So, I think that’s something growing but also our understanding of it is growing. So, if someone that… Its not uncommon I’ll meet someone that says “well, my grandparents you know my grandpa always have these stomach issues. But I didn’t really ever think about it. So we’re understand there’s a genetic component to it as well.” And their grandpa might not have done any treatment for it. He was just like “oh I would take a gas bag or you know I’d get a little constipated and just continue on a day by day basis taking a laxative or something like that.” So, we’re doing a lot more treatment methods for it. And there’s just a lot more awareness to it. It seems maybe it’s just me because I’m in the gut health community but I feel like every time I turn on the TV there is a different commercial for probiotics or something like that with the help with your… Impact your gut. So, I think we’re a lot more aware of it and a lot of people are interested into and ensuing it. So, the marketing around it is heightened further a billion probiotics. When I started as a dietitian which is only five years ago, we kind of touched on probiotics in school and I worked in my first job as dietitian was working as a retail dietitian. We had a handful of probiotics. There was my favorite one was one that we kept behind the pharmacy counter because it was refrigerated. We have a refrigerated section. Now, you walk into any grocery store and there are a thousands about usually people say “oh! Make sure you get a good probiotic” and a doctor will tell a patient “go get a good probiotic” and they come to me like “I don’t even know. There’s thousands. How can I possibly decide which one is a good probiotic for me and my symptoms” and they can be very daunting for patients. So, I think that awareness is increasing and we’re going to we’re going to see patients seeking out help which is going to influence the ways that physicians interact with it. But I also think a big picture of it is the actual microbiome which is all the bacteria that makes up and fungus that make up our gut tracks. So, as we understand that they’ve just started sequencing it. We started having a better understanding of it and research is coming out on a daily basis and on how we can understand that and apply that information that I think we continue to dig into that research we’re going to understand our gut a lot better and how it influences and how we can influence that with our different interventions. We might do diet, exercise, all of those things can influence and do influence it.

Mathea Ford: [00:24:44] I know my listeners are thinking to themselves what is a good probiotic to get at the store if I don’t like yogurt and kefir and kombucha and sauerkraut and kimchi?

Bethany Frazier: [00:24:54] Yes. So, there’s a couple that I think are better. I think in general the rules of thumb are it doesn’t have to have thousands of different strands by usually like just be ones that have a couple of the lactobacillus strands and then a couple that have this bifidobacteria strand. And I think most people also benefit especially if you have a little bit of stomach problem. If you’re someone who’s like “I just want add general probiotic.” I don’t know that there’s a ton of research for people that they should have on a daily basis for the rest of their life. Maybe that research will come out. Right now, I think making sure you have a good one that’s altering your gut bacteria. Part of the problem with some probiotics is the capsule that is put in. Whether that actually can survive your stomach acid in your stomach to make it to the GI tract. The remaining GI Tract aimed to proliferate your intestines that’s the whole goal. And some of them are not put in the right way that they can. So that can be very confusing for consumers too. Sometimes the delayed relief will help that a little bit. Just reading that on the label and you don’t need a 100 billion. You can do just a 10 billion would probably be fine but the quantity that sounds like a lot but at 10 billion would probably be fine. And our gut is very transient. It changes from a daily basis so if you’re someone that has a little bit of tummy troubles and you think “I should start taking a probiotic and I got sick instantly” that’s a possibility. So either gradually build up to it. Don’t try and take the recommended dosage of eight in a day or something like that. Try and gradually build up to it and that can help as well and I actually recommend that the other strand that I think the lactobacillus and bifido. I think a lot of people with that problem benefit from the fungal strain which is saccharomyces boulardii. That’s a really…. I said a lot of really fun long words. But they’re common ones that you can find or just walk into a good grocery store – a good natural market that has some support. Someone that works there say those words or google it. In fact, saccharomyces boulardii and they will be able to point you in that right direction but that’s another one that has good research as far as kind of help managing some of that gut. Just by that disruption and gut bacteria. So I think those are good things to look for in a probiotic but I do recommend talking to a practitioner if you have that availability because like I said going into your regular grocery store and just buying one off the shelf you have no idea if that’s helping you other than how you feel. So, sometimes your practitioner will have a recommendation. This one’s well researched, this one’s not well researched or this one’s good for people that just have more predominant diarrhea or more prolonged constipation. So, there’s so many different factors that they can kind of help you navigate through and make a better selection.

Mathea Ford: [00:27:53] You mentioned some of the recent changes like with the microbiome tracking and what are some of the more recent advances made in the treatment of this issue or is there any research going on that you think is really exciting that may provide some great insight?

Bethany Frazier: [00:28:10] Well, I think one of the more interesting areas of research. Well, I’m on that area, so I think everything that has to do with the gut is super interesting. But one of the interesting pieces is that they’re noticing different populations of bacteria in your gut influenced the way that you absorb nutrients. So you can actually now absorb nutrients based on the bacteria that you have a predominant in your gut which can also influence how much you can serve people, two people the exact same plate of food and they can actually absorb one person over the other commends or more of the calories and nutrients from it which is usually more predominant in people that are overweight or obese. I think that’s really interesting just to be able to understand that it’s not you know people who struggle to lose weight or to maintain their weight that sometimes it’s a lot deeper than just the calories that they’re eating next to their skinny friends. It can be the calories. It can be actually what their gut are doing with those calories and we have the ability to test that. But I already said that the gut is very transient so it can change and fluctuate with seasons and different times of day and all of that. We can influence that and I think they’re still trying to figure out how they can on a population wide make that available and whether that information is going to be super reliable. I think that will come out soon enough that people will be able to and there are some tests that I’ll use on patients to see what the composition is of their microbiome to understand it and see what types of things are they’re going to benefit from the most as far as what type of bacteria from a probiotic they might need, which type of foods they might benefit from and kind of look at that whole picture be able to see what’s going on inside and why they might be having some other symptoms that they have.

Mathea Ford: [00:29:59] So, thinking about the listener’s being dietitians or even just people just more interested in nutrition how can this information that we’ve talked about, what would be some key takeaways for people to use in their day to day life either with patients they’re working with or just with themselves?

Bethany Frazier: [00:30:18] I think for practitioners that are working with patients, being during ask some of those questions especially if you’re doing something that’s not at all related to gut health. Seeing that there’s so many connections so you’re talking with someone for a weight loss or like you you’re talking to someone for kidney disease, asking them some of those questions just to get them aware of those issues. “How are your bowel movements?” They might say “fine!” “Well, how many times a day do you go? Is that normal for you?” Just asking a couple of questions I think will only expand you as a practitioner help you understand some of the trends. So, you don’t have to do the research you’ll be the first to see the trends in your population on what is normal and what’s not normal for bowel habit and how that really influences. How their health as the population. So, I think that’s a great takeaway for practitioners. If I am doing more research because you’re going to get asked about the FODMAP diet. Like I said everyone seems like everyone has IBS but there’s smaller things that you can do besides applying the low FODMAP diet depending on what people’s symptoms are. So, looking at their caffeine intake, looking at their drinking enough water. How much soda they’re drinking if they’re getting enough fruits and vegetables. It’s always a really easy thing that dietitians love to talk about. Are you getting enough fruits and vegetables and fiber. Good sources of fiber to continue to support your bowel health. I think those are all in and probiotic that’s probably getting behind a good probiotic. It’s impossible as practitioners or as people wanting to improve our health. I think it’s impossible for us to know every single probiotic that’s out on the market. But doing a little bit of research or reaching out to a trusted resource or some really great dietitians that you can follow on social media. Finding some distance or check on their website. Things like that that you can trust and kind of keep ahead even gut health is not your primary occupation like it is for me. I still feel that most of us all of us does and we need to do all we can to improve those things and keep them healthy so that you don’t end up at my door saying “I need help!” I want to prevent you from getting there. I want you to be able to have the resources to stay healthy so try to incorporate your fermented foods when you can and staying exercising and getting enough sleep. Simple things that you don’t have to really even see a dietitian to know that you need to do. But being consistent in that will only improve your gut health for a long term.

Mathea Ford: [00:32:49] Are there a couple dietitians that you follow that talk about gut health a lot that you would recommend?

Bethany Frazier: [00:32:54] So, those two at least on the FODMAP side there’s two dietitians that I think are kind of the predominant ones in the US and that’s Patsy Catsos and Kate Scarlata. They’re both. They have written books about FODMAP. They’re great resource kind of how I got my start with FODMAP with what’s with both of their resources and they both have lots of great resources on their website that are for free. So if you’re someone that wants to read more about it you think about I have tummy troubles I think FODMAP good solution for me. You can go on their websites and get good resources from that and just in social media they both have some in that world, in that realm. I also really like Andrea Hardy. She is from Canada and she has lots of great from the social media side she’s hads lots some great resources for gut health. So, she does FODMAP and she also does a lot of other areas of gut health. So she’s a fun one to follow too.

Mathea Ford: [00:33:52] So, you said Patsy Catsos? Okay and who is the other one?

Bethany Frazier: [00:33:59] Kate Scarlata.

Mathea Ford: [00:34:06] Yeah that’s good. So people are interested in learning a little bit more about it, they can also get that information from a qualified source. I always ask my guests what is their favorite food. So, what’s your favorite food?

Bethany Frazier: [00:34:21] I know with my outlook here you would say my answer and this is probably like a special occasion favorite food and this is totally a dietitian answer I don’t really know why this is my favorite food but I love Salmon Salad. I know that sounds a dietitian answer and I don’t mean to be but I if I go out for a special I think I don’t prepare it at home. I have a family of picky eaters. So, we don’t ever eat salad. We do occasionally eat salmon but if we eat a salad I’m eating it alone because my family will not eat it. I love to go out and get a really good salad. Not a low calorie salad. We don’t care about that. We want it really good salad. Fresh and had lots of fun ingredients in it. I just love fun food. I think good and I like to experiment with that. I like to go find places and try new things.

Mathea Ford: [00:35:03] I love salads too. I know.

Bethany Frazier: [00:35:05] That’s the dietitian answer but to prove we can’t help it it makes everybody feel good. As soon as it is inside where we know the things that make us feel good and I mean I like to have a brownie every once in a while too but a salad makes me feel good and it taste good.

Mathea Ford: [00:35:19] Great! Bethany, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It was a pleasure to have you on the show. I know my listeners have learned a lot about gut health and IBS and how that can affect them even or just like a friend if they know somebody “hey this is what I heard about that.” So if listeners want to connect with you what’s the best way to do that?

Bethany Frazier: [00:35:41] I’d love to connect with you on social media. You can find me on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter. It’s @theKCDietitian like Kansas City Dietitian. I mean that with pretty or my website is KansasCityDietitian.com.

Mathea Ford: [00:35:59] Great! So, guys it’s been another great episode of the Nutrition Experts Podcast. The podcast that is all about learning more so you can do more with nutrition in your life.

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Nutrition Experts Podcast Episode 28 Functional Nutrition And Healthy Guts with Sara Korzeniewski, RDN

November 12, 2018 by matheaford Leave a Comment

Sara is a registered dietitian, certified LEAP therapist, and functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner. She suffered with hormone and digestive symptoms for years with little recommendations for relief. Being in the wellness field she knew there had to be more going on and was determined to find a solution. She started studying functional medical nutrition therapy and through functional lab work, nutrition, and lifestyle was finally able to find a long term answers to her symptoms. Now she helps busy women dig to the root cause of their health issues. Using proper testing, science based education, and lots of support, she empowers women to take back their health and gain back energy and vitality!

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Mathea Ford: [00:00:26] Hi there! It’s Mathea. Welcome back to the Nutrition Experts Podcast. The podcast featuring nutrition experts who are leading the way using food starts today, right now with our next guest. It’s great to have Sara Korzeniewski on the show today. Welcome to Nutrition Experts. I’m excited to have you on the show and share your expertise with my tribe. So, Sara tell my listeners a little bit more about you and what you do.

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:00:56] So, I am a Registered Dietitian. I’ve been a Registered Dietitian for about 13 years now. I’m also a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner as well as a certified LEAP therapist. So, I help busy women dealing with hormone imbalances, digestive issues kind of get things back on track. I don’t just treat symptoms but really help clients get to the root of their symptoms. I’m all about you know getting to the root cause and not just managing symptoms, you’re trying to cover them up. I use functional lab work to find hidden internal stressors and dysfunctions to really help provide clients with resources and information to be able to rebuild their home.

Mathea Ford: [00:01:39] Okay. Can You talk a little bit more about your credential as a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner? And why would a dietitian want or need that additional training?

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:01:49] Sure. So, you know as a registered dietitian you know going through school you know we get a lot of the conventional training and you definitely get a lot of resources to talk to clients about food. But as I was really working through my practice come to the realization that food is just one piece of kind of the health puzzle and didn’t really want to just have people come to me and say “Okay. Well, tell me how to eat?” And there’s just I think such a need out there for supporting women in getting to the root cause of their symptoms. I dealt with it a lot myself. You know I think a lot of people become nutritionists or become dietitians or health coaches because you know they’ve dealt with maybe a health concern themselves. And so then they become you know super interested in it. Well for me it was kind of the opposite. So, you know I had been interested in nutrition from a very young age you know since the seventh grade and became a dietitian and you know like a lot of people started out in the clinical setting and wasn’t super fulfilled in that. About halfway through my career kind of decided and learned a lot more about Functional Nutrition and Functional Medicine and kind of realized there was a lot more information out there than really what I had been taught. So, started to do a lot more digging on my own a lot more reading, a lot more research and started to kind of realize that I was actually having symptoms that weren’t normal and that there was probably a deeper reason for that. And so started to get into the functional realm world and came across the FDN program and what the FDN program you know they really teach you not just you know about nutrition but really about lifestyle as well and also being able to use functional lab work to help people get to the root of their health concerns because you know we don’t diagnose, we don’t treat diseases but we really help people look for areas of opportunity for healing and that’s exactly what I was looking for. So, I was able to do some some lab work on my own on myself first and actually realized that there was more going on inside than I had ever thought. And so I was able to use that information to really help heal myself from the inside and help eliminate any symptoms I was having at the root. You know I was having just the symptoms bloating, constipation, hormone imbalances, I had you know really irregular periods, you know developed a fibroid, you know things like that. I was dealing with acne especially you know hormonal acne around chin. Was realizing that there was something going on inside that was contributing to those. So, being able to kind of figure that out myself I was like “Wow! This is really interesting you know this disclose a lot deeper than just what we’re eating.” You know we also have to take everything else going on in our lives into consideration as well as you know what’s going on internally and the only way to really figure that out is with good functional testing. You know we could guess all day long and I definitely did plenty of that.

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:05:07] You know trying probiotics and digestive enzymes and you know eating fermented foods and you know all of the things that we know as a basis for good digestive health. But it was until I did lab work and found there were some infections and there were some imbalances in my gut bacteria going on that I was able to really address it and be able to eliminate you know the symptoms that I have so now that’s really why I like to help my clients do that.

Mathea Ford: [00:05:35] I think that’s a great example of you know we get so generalized information in our internships and that’s the purpose is to get a broad swath and then you kind of specialize, specialize, specialize but how is it different from normal medicine? The functional work that you do to with a patient because it sounds like there’s some you know fact basis, there’s some labs. But how is it different than what you would do as a dietician without this training, without this credential?

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:06:11] The FDN program has allowed me really to have access to more labs to be able to run with clients. As a dietitian, there are some labs that we are able to order and it kind of depends on what state you’re in as well. Certain states allow for you to be able to do more so for my state here I use Dutch testing which is a urine based hormone test so I can definitely do that on my own as an RD but I wasn’t able to run a GI map which is the stool test that I like to run with clients. It’s a DNA based stool test so with the FDN program, we also have access to what they call a Medical Director program. We can basically request labs through their doctor who’s the director and you’ll be able to use that to be able to get that testing out and available for clients because these functional tests that I have seen because you know I’ve run a few different labs on myself. I did traditional blood testing for hormones which of course you know oftentimes I hear even from clients you know it comes back and the doctor says “Oh! Everything looks normal right?” It looks like everything’s fine even though you’re like fallen down with symptoms as long as labs look fine you’re fine right? But in the functional world you know we look at things in a much tighter range than in the conventional world you know as long as you fall within between A and Z, you’re fine even if you’re at B you know. So, in the functional world we’re much tighter there but we also take the client into account to what symptoms are you having and use that to correlate. You know listening to you and what’s going on with you not just reading the labs. That has really been a catalyst of what FDN has taught me to do to is to being able to use and have access to labs but also reading them and looking at them from a functional perspective and also then taking the client and what they’re dealing with into account too. With Conventional Medicine and honestly I see this happen sometimes within the functional like naturopathic world. There are definitely plenty of great doctors out there but it’s all too about kind of what they’ve been taught you know and then conventional world they’ve been taught “Okay, if someone comes in with this. This is what you do. And then if that comes back fine then this is like the medication you give them” because they’re really just trying to help manage symptoms. They’re not really taught to get to the root. And you know even in an ad for profit world you know sometimes you’re in the case where you know they’ll get a bunch of labs done even if they’re really good labs and then they might just be told “Okay, well here take these 10 supplements and you’re be good.” But you know the healing process isn’t just about food, it isn’t just about taking supplements but it’s about lifestyle too. “How are you managing your stress? Are you sleeping? You know are you supporting your liver? Are you removing as many toxins from your life as possible?” You know these it’s looking at the person as a whole because your body doesn’t work as individual system. So, oftentimes like someone will say “I went to the doctor and they tested my hormones and they said I was low in progesterone so they just gave me some progesterone.” And I said “well, that’s great! Because that might help you feel better. But I want to know why progesterone is low. I want to dig deeper and figure out what’s causing. Is it a digestive issue? Is it a stress issue? It could be a combination of both. Are you just you know nutrient deficient which is preventing you from being able to you know make certain hormones? Is it inflammation that’s causing that?” So you know you really want to be able to work with somebody that’s looking at the full picture and I see that missing in especially the conventional medicine world.

Mathea Ford: [00:09:55] What are some things that people might consider normal that are actually signs or something to be concerned about?

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:10:03] Yeah! So, I think the biggest things that I see with clients constipation you know I would say a good 80 to 90 percent of clients I deal with have constipation and sometimes they don’t even realize that they’re constipated. I’ve heard of “Oh! I went to my doctor I told them I only poop three times a week but that’s how I’ve always been and they said ‘Oh well that’s probably normal for you'” Sorry but it’s not. Even if it’s something you’ve been dealing with for your whole life. That doesn’t make it normal. You know we need to be able to poop daily to be able to get rid of toxins and get rid of excess hormones and things like that. So that’s a sign. So, even those that are maybe going on a daily basis. Does it look like little balls? Do you feel actually like you’re eliminating fully? If not then that’s still a sign of constipation. I had to write a post a blog post about what healthy poop looks like because people don’t know you know looking at that old Bristol School chart to see kind of where you fall there. I also know a lot of people women are dealing with PMS. You know premenstrual syndrome whether it’s cramping you know, whether it’s bloating, irritability, you know irregular periods – those types of issues. And we think it’s so common. I mean gosh every time I watch TV or commercial and I see them talking kind of joking about PMS you know and like every time I see that I’m like “That’s not normal!” You know it means there’s a hormone imbalance going on that needs to be addressed. We shouldn’t have to deal with those types of things. So, I would say those are really the two top problems that women come to me with that they don’t really always realize is an issue. But you know I deal a lot with low energy, you know fatigue. Some people are like “well, I have three kids.” So yeah you know the doctor says “Well, of course your fatigued you know because you’re dealing with three children” but that’s not always the case. You know that could definitely be a symptom of something going on. I see a lot of anxiety as well. You know depression and that is another sign, it’s a symptom of something going on deeper and you know that’s kind of one thing that I like to educate the public on is to what things to look for that aren’t normal and just about any symptom you can think of. Something that I think we know ourselves enough to know when something’s off or when something doesn’t seem right and you know we just want to be able to acknowledge that yes there’s something going on you know that we can address and we can look and investigate to see what’s going on that’s contributing to it and that there are answers out there.

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:12:37] And so if you go to a practitioner and you know they do testing on you if you’re lucky enough to kind of get that and they say “Oh! Everything looks fine, you’re fine!” but you don’t feel fine then don’t take that as the end-all- be-all. You need to find somebody who really understands this whole process and how the body works together as a whole to really help you figure out what’s causing the symptoms.

Mathea Ford: [00:13:03] Okay. So, You also mentioned that you are a LEAP therapist? L-E-A-P. So, what is that and how does that fit into your practice?

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:13:12] Yeah! So LEAP MRT testing is a food sensitivity test that’s a blood test. A lot of food sensitivity testing out there is just IgG using IgG antibodies to look for food sensitivities which are different than food allergies. Food allergies or IGE testing and food sensitivities are much more common. LEAP really goes above and beyond just looking for IgG because there’s multiple ways that your body can react to certain things. So, I find a lot of clients that I work with. You know we do stool testing. We look for it. We’re looking for gut infections, we’re looking for bacterial imbalances, you know things like that but oftentimes stress. These pathogens you know we’ve been on antibiotics a lot maybe even birth control pills that are potentially contributing to gut bacterial imbalances. You know birth control pills aren’t dealing with the problem. They’re not dealing with the root problem of hormones that are just cutting your own hormones off and you’re getting synthetic. But ultimately that can do a lot of damage on the inside as well. And I know because I was on it for a long time and had some issues with it.

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:14:22] But these things cause damage to the lining of the digestive tract and can contribute to what a lot of people know as leaky gut or intestinal permeability. And so then when you’re eating foods even if you’re eating really healthy foods, those if you have leaky gut then those foods the particles those proteins go out into your bloodstream where they’re not supposed to be and then you have a lot of immune cells floating around your bloodstream looking for things that aren’t supposed to be there. So they might come into contact with these food particles and say “wow! I need to help her fight this off. There’s something here that’s not supposed to be here. There’s a foreign invader here.” Your immune system sets these alarm bells off. Your whole body kind of kicks into gear trying to get rid of this stuff but you’re constantly eating those foods right? You’re always exposing your body to that. So, you go from you know acute inflammation which is normal. That’s a normal process that your body uses to help you deal with something like maybe a cold virus. But if you’re chronically exposing your body to these particles and you have a leaky gut. Now, you can develop chronic inflammation which is at the root of our lot of our modern day diseases. So, by using food sensitivity testing you all good food sensitivity tests we can kind of get an idea. Now, no test is really going to be perfect but it’s a tool. Testing is a tool. You know they’re not absolute.

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:15:46] So, we can use that information to kind of pinpoint where some food sensitivities might be and what foods might be contributing to inflammation in an individual because that’s going to be very different from person to person. You know there’s so many clients that come to me that have you know maybe are suffering from digestive issues, suffering from hormone issues and what’s the first thing they tend to do they start eliminating every food they can think of that could be contributing to it. Right? And they start eliminating maybe gluten and dairy and eggs and all this stuff and then they don’t necessarily feel like it’s helped as much as they would have liked. So, what they end up doing is they start cutting even more foods out and be like “oh! It’s got to be the food. It’s got to be the food.” Right? And then by the time they come to me, now they have this horrible relationship with food you know and they’re afraid to eat and they think every food is going to cause issues. They don’t want to go out to eat at restaurants with their friends because they’re afraid they’re going to eat something that’s going to cost them. And at the end of the day it isn’t just about the food. But that definitely is a piece of the puzzle right? It’s one factor. So, by using testing you know we can kind of get a better idea of what could be causing more inflammation and potentially more symptoms in that person so that they don’t have to spend months and years in agony trying to cut out all these things that they’re thinking is contributing to the problem. So, it kind of helps ease that process a little bit.

Mathea Ford: [00:17:18] I can see how that all goes together with what you’re doing. So, I know you’ve talked a little bit about this but what are the most of the people or the women you talk to have issues with and how do those show up in their lives?

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:17:32] Like I mentioned kind of PMS, irregular periods. I see a lot of people with PCOS polycystic ovarian syndrome or suspect you know that they have PCOS just based on symptoms that they have you know acne, hair loss, dark hair growth on like their you know neck or chest things like that. You know a lot of anxiety sometimes issues with sleeping, low energy, you know fatigue, they feel like they sleep throughout the night but they wake up still tired. You know the constipation, bloating you know that’s another huge one. A lot of uncomfortable to ask and these are definitely symptoms. These are things that are not right. It’s your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. It’s kind of your body’s way of screaming out for help right? Symptoms are typically the last thing that pop up. When a symptom is is there that usually means something has been off for a while. Right? It can show up kind of random time. You know sometimes I hear people tell me “Oh well! I felt fine and then this one thing happened and then all of a sudden like I had all these symptoms” and they get very confused by that you know they’re like “well, I was doing really well and now I’m not and I don’t know what happened.” And for some people it’s one stressor. Right? And what I tell clients is that stress can come from hundreds of different places and a lot of them can be hidden internally.

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:18:57] You know food sensitivities, blood sugar dysregulation, gut infections – these are all stressors that you may not really realize are issues because they’re going on inside you know. Some people are like “well, I don’t feel like I’m stressed like I don’t feel mental, emotional stress” but that’s just like one area of stress. And I think in our world today it’s impossible to avoid all stress. You know it’s like unless you’re living on a deserted island and you’re independently wealthy you know you probably have some form of stress. It just kind of comes with the territory here. You kind of got to think of your body as like filling up a cup with water you know. Your body can handle so much water until it starts to overflow because it just can’t handle it all anymore. So, it kind of becomes this domino effect of starting out with one stressor and then if that doesn’t get resolved it can kind of start to move into other areas of your body and create more symptoms more issues and then before you know it you wake up and it’s like “oh! I have five symptoms where as a couple months ago I maybe just didn’t feel so good and now I’m like now I’m constipated, now I’m bloated and it kind of becomes this” you know just this overflow that your body can’t handle anymore. And so now it turns into other things.

Mathea Ford: [00:20:10] Yeah! That makes a lot of sense because your body does work so hard to maintain that homeostasis that it does all these other things to compensate. Yeah. And then one day it just breaks down.

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:20:22] Yeah! When you’re under stress your body puts priority on that. It could care less about helping you maintain your estrogen and progesterone levels or maintaining your thyroid levels or you know making sure you’re adjusting properly because it’s trying to help deal with what it considers most critical.

Mathea Ford: [00:20:38] So, you mentioned hormones a little bit too. Can you talk about what types of hormonal issues women tend to have?

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:20:47] It definitely can vary a lot. I mean that’s why I love testing because you know I don’t want to guess what’s going on. And I’ve kind of seen it all. You know I’ve run hundreds of different hormone of the DUTCH test in particular which I love because it doesn’t just look at hormones like it’s not just testing estrogen, progesterone, testosterone but we’re looking at how your body’s actually making them and how you’re processing them, what pathways they’re going down and that’s really important information as well. So, I mean I’ve seen everything from you know high estrogen which is causing estrogen dominant symptoms which is you know can cause heavy bleeding, the PMS and the breast tenderness and you know the fibroids and things like that. You know I’ve seen a lot of PCOS which can be low progesterone you know high testosterone levels. I’ve seen a lot of adrenal issues right? Because we also get to look at cortisol and see how that’s working. I’ve seen high, I’ve seen low, I’ve seen a mixture of both. Part of testing is to try to figure out why those things are off not just that they’re off. You know how is the liver processing hormones? Is it because the liver’s clogged up and it’s not really even processing and that are all that causing them to be higher in the system. Are you under so much stress? You have lots of adrenal issues and cortisol dysregulation that’s down regulating your ability to make your estrogen and progesterone or are you under a lot of stress, have a lot of inflammation going on in your body? Inflammation hugely impacts your ability to make hormones. You know your immune system is in your gut. You know 70 – 80 percent of it and any inflammation in the gut can disrupt all of your hormones. If you’re constipated you’re not eliminating those hormones properly they’re getting recirculated in your body and then they’re getting reactivated and then you end up with higher amounts and your digestive system is also a place where a lot of the nutrients get absorbed that help you actually make hormones. You know in the first place you need those building blocks. So, you know when I test women I like to also run the stool test at the same time because the hormone testing can be really helpful. You know seeing the patterns there but like if I see on the hormone test or it looks like you have what inflammation it doesn’t really tell us where that inflammation is. So, that’s why we typically need to look at the whole picture.

Mathea Ford: [00:23:08] You talk about eating real food on your blog. And I was wanting to know kind of what do you define as real food? What do you think of when you say the word real food because you can be literal is the food actually there or not? But there is a difference that you define as real food.

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:23:27] When I’m talking to clients you know I’m not expecting perfection here. We want to kind of see you know you make progress to try to eat more real food than processed food because that’s going to provide you with more nutrients. It’s going to decrease stress on your body. So, the kind of easy definition there for me is is it coming from a farm or is it coming from a factory? Right? Does it sound like food? If you’re reading the label and it looks like you can’t even pronounce half ingredients then it’s probably not real food. It’s probably synthetically made in a factory by a scientist. And you know real food is providing your body with a lot of nutrients which are the building blocks of how your body functions in the first place but it’s also those extra toxins that you’re then providing if you eat a lot of processed foods or a lot of more chemically induced foods then that becomes an added stress on your body like we talked about before. And you know your liver gets burdened by it your body doesn’t really know what to do with it. And sometimes these chemicals can also disrupt hormones and kind of turn on certain hormones and then you have excess hormones. So, just kind of starting with the basics and just trying to eat food that sounds like food.

Mathea Ford: [00:24:43] So, what are some of the biggest mistakes that people make when they’re just eating their regular diet that you usually advise your clients to change?

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:24:51] Typically, I think it’s really easy to get in the trap especially of like let’s say you know gluten free. Going gluten free is kind of the big thing these days. Right? Or at least trying that first but then they get into the trap of kind of gluten free junk food. You know it’s like they’re now they’re eating all the gluten free cookies and stuff like that. But still if you read the label has 20, 30, 40 ingredients in them and a lot of them don’t necessarily sound like real food. So, it’s like well yeah great you’re eating you know gluten free but you’re still kind of in the processed food category there.

Mathea Ford: [00:25:27] How does processed food affect your body differently than real food so to speak? What types of things is it doing differently in your body?

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:25:35] Yeah! I think the biggest thing kind of touched on this before is just that anything that goes through your body has to go through your liver. Anything that you put on your body right gets absorbed in your skin and goes through your liver. Your liver’s like the filter of your body. And so when you’re eating foods that your body doesn’t recognize you know it has to get processed and it can kind of cause more stress on your liver which can ultimately impact a lot of other things too. Your digestion you know your liver is part of your digestive system and even your hormones because sometimes your hormones get put on the backburner while your body processes these other toxins. And then it can get recirculated reactivated. Also you’re not feeding your good gut bacteria. You know when you’re eating, we’re eating we should be eating to feed our healthy bacteria because our gut bacteria does a lot for us. You know helps us break down food, helps us make certain nutrients, helps us make short chain fatty acids that help keep us in a good mood. Help keep bad bacteria from being able to get into the system and take hold. And so when you’re not feeding your good gut bacteria with low fiber diets right? We see that a lot. Then, your gut bacteria starts to kind of eat away at the mucus layer that protective layer that’s in the lining of your digestive system. And then it does that to kind of feed itself and then once that’s gone that bacteria can start to die off and then fast forward due time and you’ve got digestive issues because you haven’t been feeding that good bacteria with nutrient dense foods.

Mathea Ford: [00:27:12] So, what are some tips or some things that they can do to use this information that you just gave us which was great in their day to day life?

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:27:21] I think for a lot of practitioners you know this process for us we should never stop learning. Even if you don’t pay to go through a program. You know there’s so many different resources out there. Go to the library get some good books, podcasts right? They’re free. They have a lot of great information on them and also just being open to new things. Things you may not feel like you understand now but don’t dismiss it before you get a chance to kind of look into it because ultimately at the end of the day you know I’m here to work for other people and to help them and the same thing for doctors you know even if you’re being paid by insurance companies you know you still work for us.

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:28:01] And so the the thing that always pains me the most is when someone comes to me and says “I tried to go to my doctor. I maybe even tried three, four, five, six different doctors and nobody would listen to me or they would dismiss me or you know tell me it was in my head or you know say ‘well, oh! I don’t think you should do this or I don’t think that’s what it is.'” And you know stuff like that but really working with your client as a team and being on their side and if someone comes to you you know saying “hey I’m really interested in running this house or I’m really interested in knowing more about that.” If you don’t know it or don’t understand it tell them that and say “well, let me get back to you let me look into it more.” And don’t just dismiss them because this is kind of a crisis situation that we’re in right now. I mean I had someone the other day who told me who you know he was having a lot of digestive issues and he couldn’t even get into the GI doctor for another two months. And that just kind of shows you how busy these doctors are because these things are so prevalent now. If we truly want to help people and heal people then we need to be open to that and be open to learning new things even if it’s not something that maybe you were taught when you were getting your education. And so just really make sure you’re also very sympathetic with these people that are going through a lot. I mean for a lot of people they’ve been dealing with these things for so long that they just started looking for someone to really listen to them and realize that there’s something going on and take them seriously. So, you know that’s kind of what my hope is for other practitioners moving forward. And so if I can kind of shed light on that and maybe even something that I mentioned make someone think “oh! Ha! Maybe I should go look at that or look at that test” or you know “hey! If someone comes to me with this issue, now I know I don’t just dismiss them or just give them the medication but I want to kind of figure out what I can do to help them” and if you don’t feel like you know then you know refer them to somebody who you do think will help. You know I know a lot of doctors don’t get a lot of nutrition you know in school. So, have a dietitian on your team or somebody that you can then refer them to be able to help them through that process because I still hear people doctors tell people that nutrition doesn’t matter or “oh! You know you don’t need to change your diet because it does not going to impact you” but it does right? We know it. We see it. We can prove it. So, be open to that.

Mathea Ford: [00:30:32] In a little lighter note, I always like to end with asking my guests “What is your favorite food?”.

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:30:40] Yeah! You know if you were to ask me that ten years ago I probably would’ve said something with sugar in it. Ice cream or whatever. And I asked my husband that all the time. Sometimes we go out and you know there’s there’s people that ask and he’ll say “salad.” As boring as that is, it’s kind of true. It’s like a really good salad though not just I’m not talking about some lettuce thrown into a bowl or whatever but like a nice homemade dressing with some good roasted veggies on there. Maybe some nuts or trunks, some good healthy protein something like that. I’m kind of one of those people that if I haven’t eaten vegetables in too long. I’m like give me a sprout, where’s the nearest salad that I can get my hands on? And after I eat it I’m just like “oh yes! You know. That was what my body needed.”

Mathea Ford: [00:31:30] Wow! Oh that’s great! Yeah. I love salad too and I love just yeah! It can’t be plain it needs to have a few other things like maybe some pears, maybe some roasted walnuts something like that.

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:31:43] I mean that’s just kind of goes to show you how kind of changing yourself over the years can make your taste buds change too.

Mathea Ford: [00:31:53] Well, Sara thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It was a pleasure to have you on the show. I know my listeners have learned a lot about gut and hormone imbalances and about your FDN credential. I think that’s really something that dietitians need to know about at least. If listeners want to connect with you what’s the best way to do with that?

Sara Korzeniewski: [00:32:13] I do have a website. It is theorganicdietitian.com and that dietitian with D-I-E-T-I-T-I-A-N. You know I know what people felt with the C but that’s not the right way. And you can also find me on social media with the same name The Organic Dietitian over on Instagram. That’s where I had to do a lot of posting and also on Facebook as The Organic Dietitian as well.

Mathea Ford: [00:32:39] Well, guys this has been another great episode of the Nutrition Experts Podcast. The podcast is all about learning more so you can do more with nutrition in your life.

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