Elyce Shapiro: 18:04
Yeah, it’s a great question. And so one of the things I think for kiddos, and this also comes from my health at every size lens, which, you know, just as a quick description, that basically means I take a weight neutral approach. I don’t use weight as a marker of health. I think we have an extremely fat phobic society. Not even I know we have fat phobic society diet culture that tells us that we need to be a certain body size or weight to be respected, and I don’t support that in any way.
But it also means practicing food neutrality. There are no good or bad foods. You know, pizza and ice cream, they all have their place. And as someone who focuses on gut health, I can tell you I still have no problem with kiddo. Try to take away a kiddo from eating pizza or ice cream, especially like at a birthday party or something.
Like it’s just. Yeah, no. And so, you know, practice food neutrality and also taking an additive approach to what people eat versus taking away. So like I would say, you know, again, I’m not a parent myself, but what I do kind of recommend is focusing on increasing their intake of some of those, you know, nourishing foods, whatever, whatever kiddos like, every little bit counts and just not almost like trying to not be too perfect about it, not focusing on, oh my gosh, they’re eating French fries and they’re eating burgers. And you know what?
There’s nourishment to that. There’s joy in that. You don’t want to create a negative relationship or association with food.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 19:40
So I get carried away. It sounds like is one of your messages because again, sometimes parents are really healthy, like it’s changed their lives. And so they want their children to, you know, kind of have the same a same approach to eating. But it’s it’s scary because food is something that only the person eating really has control over. So you’re saying kind of let them let them be kids, let them eat some unhealthy foods.
But but your goal would be more to introduce some of those foods that they like that are healthy and make sure they have those. Are there certain foods that are particularly gut healthy foods? Again, this is a new concept to me.
Elyce Shapiro: 20:16
It’s a good it’s a good question. The key when it comes to foods and gut health, diversity okay. You want to eat a like our gut loves colors. It loves diversity. It’s like, you know, I love I have this weird thing that I eat of all year round.
Being in Chicago, frozen blueberries, frozen pomegranate seeds, and frozen mango, I love that. However, if I ate that all day, every day, yes, that’s great fiber. It’s so many great nutrients I need. I should eat oranges, I should eat potatoes, I should eat, I should get cheese, I should, you know, it is. You want to have a diverse group of foods.
So it is really like introducing new things, trying new things. And I know for some people that’s hard because we get in those routines. Some people have the same thing for breakfast every day, right? Right.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 21:09
But you’re saying if at all possible, especially again from like a parenting lens, you know, introduce kids to different foods, you know, for picky eaters, don’t just give in to they only eat macaroni and cheese all day long, like continue to introduce new foods and so forth.
Elyce Shapiro: 21:26
Yeah, that’s the number one tip that I always talk about is diversity. Getting movement getting sleep. You know those are movement is actually really good to support your gut health. Sleep is when our digestive system resets just as how our brain resets. Yes.
That regulates our blood sugar our hunger and satiety hormones. Those get, you know, supported when we sleep. So I mean, really, it does go back to all the things that you would do to support your health overall.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 21:55
Also also also help with your gut health. That’s that’s awesome. I should say, by the way, as a side note to listeners, you know, we’re talking about some of the things that parents can do around their kids eating. But, you know, part of the reason I wanted at least to come on the podcast was that we are kind of working with parents. Also on self-care.
I just interviewed someone on friendships like meaning adult friendships. So it’s not just about the parenting lens. It’s also about taking care of your own self and your own body. And when you’re not feeling well as a parent, when you have major, like you said, stomach pains, bloating, constipation, I mean, it’s going to affect your whole world, including, you know, how you parent and how you feel. So I’m glad that I’m glad again that that you can kind of speak to both lenses.
But this is so important for for everyone.
Elyce Shapiro: 22:42
I totally know, thank you I appreciate that. And then, you know, also just normalizing the conversations around those, you know, typically taboo topics, not being afraid to ask your kid about their poop, you know, asking them what does it look like? What is, you know, shaped, you know, and or asking them, you know, like if they’re if they’re saying their tummy hurts, what does that mean? I have my adult clients. I have to really drill into that when they say, oh, my stomach was so upset.
And it’s usually like having to be like, okay, well, what does that mean? Oh my God, it was.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 23:16
So uncomfortable talking about it, right?
Elyce Shapiro: 23:18
Yeah. Yeah. So just normalizing Realizing and and make it okay. Like I in my client sessions, I will openly talk about, oh, when I had diarrhea or whatever because like it’s a normal thing, there shouldn’t be shame around it. And if my clients have to open up to me about, you know, or not have to, but it’s helpful for them.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 23:37
Sure, sure.
Elyce Shapiro: 23:38
Yeah.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 23:39
No, that’s that’s a really good point because again, a lot of people stomach hurts. Right. For totally different reasons. And is it like my stomach hurts because I’m anxious about the test today or is it my stomach hurts, you know, constantly. And I am completely bloated and I haven’t pooped in a week.
Very different things, right?
Elyce Shapiro: 23:57
Exactly, exactly.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 23:59
I love that little book. Everybody Poops. I’m sure you have that for for. You know, you’ve seen that one. There should be an adult version of it.
If you haven’t made it yourself, you could write the adult version of Everybody Poops.
Elyce Shapiro: 24:10
Thank you. I don’t know if that’s actually on my website. There’s a picture of me reading that book.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 24:15
Oh my God, no.
Elyce Shapiro: 24:16
And yeah, I love that you mentioned that because that is me in a nutshell because I am reading poop research all day. I am talking about poop with my clients. I’m talking about it with my colleagues like it is. Yeah. So I love that.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 24:29
And it’s actually funny. So again, the couple women clients that clients that I’ve been alluding to, who I adore, who are in their 20s and have some serious GI issues, they will say to me, is it okay, doctor Lee, can I tell you something about my poop? They literally say that and I’m like, of course you could tell me anything. And then they’ll go, I haven’t pooped in and they’ll tell me. And I’ve been taking miralax and it’s not enough.
And so, you know, I’m like thrilled that they feel like they can talk to me about it. But it’s such a taboo topic that they even, even in their private therapy, have to say like, is it okay? Are you comfortable?
Elyce Shapiro: 25:00
Right.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 25:00
Yeah.
Elyce Shapiro: 25:01
There’s like there’s so much poop shame. And so I, I try to remove that stigma and that shame around it.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 25:07
So I love it I love it. So tell us a little bit about I guess sort of like the stress. The stress got reaction kind of maybe in the opposite. Like how does stress impact gut health?
Elyce Shapiro: 25:20
Yeah, it’s a great question. So I’m sure you’re familiar with the vagus nerve and the role of the vagus nerve. But for the parents and everyone listening, our vagus nerve is basically what connects our gut and our brain. And it’s how they talk to each other. And it’s actually one of the longest nerves in the body.
And so our vagus nerve taps into our parasympathetic, which is our rest and digest system. And and so oftentimes when we like if someone is stuck in fight or flight or freeze, we know they’re in sympathetic mode. And the way I explain it to, to people is sympathetic, which is our fight, flight or fight or flight. And then the rest and digest is parasympathetic. They’re like a seesaw.
So you can’t be in you can’t be in both at the same time. You can be in one or the other. And if we stay in sympathetic dominance. So where you know that that fight or flight, it has a number of, of impacts. So that so that’s like there’s stress, the anxiety, you know, things like that.
First of all, I, we don’t know why. But what we do know is that anxiety and depression and a number of other mental health conditions, we see a shift in the microbes in someone’s gut, like we see less of the beneficial bacteria and more of the inflammatory bacteria. Not sure why. You know, the gut bacteria research is we’ve come a long way in the last ten years, but we still have a long way to go. But it’s interesting.
So you’ll see we get less of the less of the helpful, beneficial ones, which kind of creates this cascade effect. If if you don’t have enough beneficial, it can perpetuate some of the mental health issues. Wow. Yeah. And then also again, if we’re stuck in in fight or flight mode or we have that anxiety we that that’s an upregulated HPA axis, the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal, which is our stress response.
The HPA axis puts out cortisol. That cortisol can be an annoying little bugger. Cortisol. So again we’ll see more cortisol with with mental health issues. And so that is going to it compromises the integrity of our gut barrier.
I talked about how our gut barrier is so important to prevent intestinal permeability. Cortisol is basically like a battering ram to our gut barrier. So it just, you know, it eats away at it. And so it can increase chances of intestinal permeability when we have intestinal permeability. So when stuff is leaking from our gut into our bloodstream, that creates inflammation.
Inflammation because it’s in our bloodstream that becomes systemic. It can make its way up to the brain. And you know, there’s the blood brain barrier. So when we see more inflammation in the brain, you’ll see increased brain fog. You’ll see increased fatigue.
You’ll see increased, you know, mood disorders, things like that. Neuroinflammation. So so that’s you know, those are some of the ways I’m trying to think of other things.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 28:26
And we know that stress right. Stress is bad for our health right. Everybody knows that. And it’s so funny because then my anxious clients go like but no more stress because now I’m really, really bad, right? Like, we gotta just breathe, you know?
But it’s true that, you know, we try, you know, we try to have people work on relaxation and self-care and and kind of like, how are you handling your stress? Are you walking? Are you exercising? Are you eating right? Are you sleeping because you’re drinking water?
You know, because totally obviously we definitely know there’s a there’s a significant impact for sure.
Elyce Shapiro: 28:59
Yeah. And one of the things that I also talk about too, with my clients, and also when I’m talking to therapists, is right, it would be so lovely if we could tell everyone just to get rid of your stress. If stress. If everyone could get rid of their stress. Not likely.
Especially, you know, especially people with trauma, PTSD, things like that. So it’s more the acceptance of it and just saying, okay, I know I’m stressed. Yeah. But not not beating yourself up over it, not stressing out about your stress and that acceptance part of it, because even that those are like the little glimmers, right. Like from like the polyvagal theory thing of, you know, just tapping into your, your parasympathetic nervous system, even just for a little bit, that counts.
So really just accepting that that this is okay. It’s okay that I’m anxious. It’s okay. You know, like this is just where my body’s at. So let me lean into it.
So.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 29:54
Right. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. When you’re working with adults, are you typically working in conjunction with a therapist?
Because it sounds like often there’s the GI issues and it sounds like mental health issues, like anxiety, for example.
Elyce Shapiro: 30:08
Oh yes. Quite literally every single one of my clients has a therapist and they don’t. Yeah, it’s not a requirement. And I will obviously honor and respect everyone’s comfort level. But inevitably, at some point, yes, I right now, my client roster, everyone is working with a therapist.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 30:25
That’s wonderful. No, because I just think, like you’re saying, there’s it’s a two way, you know, the gut brain is like a two way texting street, Street, street. I can’t speak street. And it’s like, you might as well really tackle both ends and see what you can do together. And I would imagine that that is probably you’re probably seeing better outcomes when when it’s tackled from both sides.
From both.
Elyce Shapiro: 30:48
It is. And then there’s the collaboration. Like a lot of times I’ll collaborate with the therapist. So we’re kind of talking about with with the client’s permission of course. But just, you know, like, here’s what I’m doing, you know, so it’s a better outcome overall for.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 31:03
Absolutely. And and one other thing I’m struck by is when you were saying Movement helps, right, with the GI. I mean, again, I think most people can like, remember a time when they’ve had a really bad stomach ache and you want to like, clench up. But if you take a walk or something, it really does help. Yeah, but it’s interesting because that’s always one of the things we tell people who are having, you know, mood issues that like, you got to move your body, you know, you may want to curl up in bed and do nothing.
And like, we know it, you know, especially if you’re like, breaking a sweat, if you’re able to go on a jog or something, that it acts in the brain like an antidepressant, right. And so exercise, cardiovascular exercise. So it’s just interesting hearing that some of the same interventions are helpful for both, you know, GI and and mood, which makes sense. But it’s just kind of helpful to hear that out loud.
Elyce Shapiro: 31:50
No I love it. And I love that you talked about it that way because it’s so true. And that’s why, you know, I’m not a therapist, but some of the things like the movement, like you recommend it, I recommend it. So that’s really.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 32:02
It really goes together. Yeah. Yeah I would say what else. Any other tips that you’d like to share with us about things that the everyday person can do to help with GI health? We haven’t mentioned so far?
Elyce Shapiro: 32:15
Yeah, I think instead of what to do, what not to do. Okay. I know if people look up, if they want to support their gut health and they Google it, the three things that are going to come up are probiotics, fiber, and fermented food. Those things are not wrong. Those things can be very beneficial for gut health.
And if you have GI issues and we don’t know what’s going on in particular, those things can make it a lot worse. So probiotics in particular, anyone who has a compromised immune system, first of all, we’d never recommend probiotics for them. If someone does have Sibo, which is what I mentioned before, probiotics can make it worse. In fact, in the protocols that I will do and protocols meaning just my recommendations, there’s no like standard protocol. Everything’s different for everyone, but in my gut protocols, I very rarely will use a probiotic.
In the beginning, I will maybe use it at the end. I actually wrote a newsletter, kind of like because I get asked about this a lot when people, people you know, want to fix their gut health. When you add a probiotic, it’s because you’re adding more beneficial bacteria. Oftentimes for people, their gut issues are not because they don’t have enough beneficial. It’s it’s there’s other things going on.
So I would say, you know, use caution about like maybe work with a provider before looking to do that. Fiber fermented foods. Same thing if you’ve got a person with IBS who tends towards diarrhea and you tell them to take fiber, oof, they’re not going to come back. Like it’s just, you know, you I’m very I go, you know, there’s a specific fiber I’ll use with my, my IBS clients and low and slow, and only after we’ve done some other things to support their gut health. Same thing with fermented foods.
They’re great for, for, you know, natural sources of probiotics, but some people just can’t do them. And it’s going to make it worse. So that’s.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 34:11
Fascinating. Yeah. No, that’s that’s super helpful. It just kind of goes back to, you know, if you’re struggling with this, you shouldn’t kind of like be figuring this out on your own, googling, see someone like you who really knows what they’re doing and is reading the literature, and it sounds like you were kind of working in conjunction as, as you need to with the GI doctor sometimes for these diagnoses that you might have a suspicion. I think it’s this, but the official diagnosis and kind of like then come back to you for for the treatment protocol options.
Elyce Shapiro: 34:40
Yeah. Exactly. Like if they need antibiotics I can’t prescribe that. So they need to get it from, from their doctor.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 34:45
Right. But no it sounds like your your approach is really again holistic. And you know, you really you really get it from personal experience. You have three now. You have been doing this professionally like you know.
Right. And so it’s better to not figuring this out on your own.
Elyce Shapiro: 35:01
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 35:02
I was going to say my last question is just if you have any specific resources, whether they’re books or articles that you think are good for parents who parents or again, adults, I should say, who just want to learn more about this topic because they might have struggled with GI issues their whole life.
Elyce Shapiro: 35:19
Yeah for sure. First of all, my heart goes out to anybody who has been struggling. I know personally and professionally how challenging that can be for your life. Yeah. So I’m probably not the best person to ask in terms of resources.
So I fun fact don’t have any social media. I spend my life living in PubMed research. I have listened to podcasts, I have read some of these books, and I think that they’re interesting. They’re usually more subject matter experts. Most of the podcasts that I listen to usually about, like, I don’t know, 40% of the material.
I’m like, okay, I agree with this, but then the rest of it I don’t. So I would more just recommend maybe finding someone you know who specializes in that area to get advice from them. Please don’t get advice from influencers. Yeah, they are not qualified to be giving health advice and take the the books like they’re, you know, books that I’ve read from experts in the field. And it’s I mean, most of that’s.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 36:19
One size fits all. Like, it’s not a wise thing.
Elyce Shapiro: 36:22
Exactly, exactly. And then the other only other thing that I did just want to mention as, as a plug, particularly for kiddos, especially young ones, you know what I have learned? So I work for this company as a part time position as a microbiome analyst because as much as I love poop, I thought, let me dive into a company that does stool testing for little kiddos. And it’s a company called Tiny Health. And they they’re the only company on the market that actually does stool testing for kids anywhere from zero to like three years of age.
Because after three years, that your gut takes the shape of an adult gut. But those first thousand days, you can do a lot, particularly if kiddos if you see them with eczema. You know, it turns out there’s some pretty simple things we can do to help prevent that atopic march, which is the the food allergies, the rhinitis, the asthma, things like that that tend to be more prominent in those earlier ages. And so I did just want to mention that if anyone is interested, there are things you can do to help your young ones out too.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 37:29
That’s an amazing resource. I have a friend whose daughter has significant asthma and allergies, and the mother was telling me actually that as a baby, when the girl was a baby, the mother, my friend was hysterical because she would be having constant diarrhea and just terrible. She busts through every diaper, I mean, for years. And so it sounds like she would have been the perfect candidate for this. So I’m going to keep this in mind for people with young 0 to 3.
Like you have to get it when they’re when they’re little and you notice it. But that’s really helpful information.
Elyce Shapiro: 38:02
Yeah.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 38:03
So yeah. So I mean thank you, Elyce, so much for sharing your time and your expertise with us. I really appreciate it.
Elyce Shapiro: 38:10
Thank you for having me. This is fun. And I could nerd out talking about this all day. So thank you for the great questions. And yes, just thank you so much.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 38:20
I love it. And everyone check out more episodes of our podcast. Go to copingpartners.com and click on Podcast & Articles. We will have all of Elyce Shapiro’s contact information listed. And thank you as always for tuning in.
Outro: 38:36
Thank you for listening to The Coping Podcast. We’ll see you again next time, and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes and check out our podcast page at copingpartners.com.