How Trauma Affects The Gut

when you're traumatized it's not just the brain I mean most of the research and most of the discussion focuses on damage to the brain which is real but it also damages our gut hi I'm Kate pirouette one of the producers of the doctors pharmacy podcasts in this mini episode dr. Hyman sits down with world-renowned expert in using mind-body medicine to heal depression anxiety and psychological trauma Jim Gordon while conventional medicine relies on talk therapy and medication to heal from traumatic experiences dr. Gordon shares why he also incorporates nutrition as a part of his trauma healing protocol let's listen in but trauma is a Greek word first of all and it means injury injury to the body mind or spirit and traumas gonna come to all of us if it doesn't come early in life it's gonna come in midlife with illnesses or divorce or difficulties losing a job or you know issues with wondering who we are and if it doesn't come then it's gonna come if we're lucky enough to get older as we grow older and become frail and deal with losses of people and deal with our own death that's traumatic so literally is is not only a psychological problem it's a physiologic biological problem absolutely it's really fascinating to me that you talked about the trauma healing diet and I don't think most people would think that food and trauma have anything to do with each other but you say they do can you explain it when you're traumatized it's not just the brain I mean most of the research and most of the discussion focuses on damage to the brain which is real but it also damages our gut so for example from the top to the bottom so we become more anxious and we eat foods to deal with our anxiety that's what happens when were traumatized yeah just as all many of the people who come to see you yeah or in that place second of all we're eating fast so we don't have time the stomach doesn't have time to do its job third of all the stress and comes with trauma causes problems in the small intestine so we start the villi yeah we can you got yeah and we got exactly so the the endothelial cells the cells that line the small intestines start opening up and all kinds of proteins that don't belong in our bloodstream start leaking through it going sensitivities yes so you get sensitive to things you were never sensitive to before increase inflammation which further inflames your brain and emotions exactly which in turn affects the gut which disables the got more and it's a vicious cycle so that's the damage that trauma does and there's really great data now how your microbiome plays role in anxiety and depression and many mental disorders exactly and and and trauma disrupts the microbiome and promotes the growth of the the pathogenic the bad bacteria and depresses the growth of the good bacteria and we're talking about the vagus nerve earlier the vagus nerve is responsive to the microbiome so if the microbiome the bacteria and the gut is disturbed then it's going to affect the vagus nerve which is not going to be sending the same positive creative brain stimulating signals back to the hippocampus and the frontal cortex that it should be sending so the gut is having a major effect on the brain what can you eat to help your trauma well most most of what you can eat are exactly the things that you and other people who are doing functional I mean it's it's really nothing dongs and cupcakes and that's that's important because that's what we go to when we remote eyes comfort when we go to the Ding Dongs the cupcakes the Macs and cheese the pint of ice cream because and trusty monkey that's my go-to and there's a reason for it because it lowers the level of our stress hormones immediately it increases the levels of dopamine and serotonin increases endorphins so we've momentary pleasure we feel I'm sorry momentary pleasure exactly and if we feel better for a while the problem is that after a while all those effects get reversed so you have to have compassion for yourself if you're reaching for the chunky-monkey after something terrible has happened then at a certain point it it it becomes necessary if you're gonna heal from the trauma to begin to reverse some of those dietary choices and and essentially the the rules are very simple the first rule I would say or the kind of secret sauce in this new diet is mindful eating eating slowly paying attention to how things taste paying attention to the food choices you really want to make once you've cleaned up your diet a little bit that's working on what you know what the researchers call the cephalic phase of digestion the brain your mind yeah so we need to approach food a bit differently slow down instead of just getting it in eating unconsciously exactly eating unconscious which is what we do and especially when we're traumatized we reach for that comfort food so eating Whole Foods eating organic food eating much more fiber we want to nourish the microbiome that I suggest in addition to fermented foods all the things that that you would suggest to patients who are dealing with chronic conditions I would say or even more important when people have been seriously traumatized because as we were saying earlier that God is leaking you heal that got you heal the brain exactly so for example I would I really recommend the importance of fermented foods I also suggest that people take probiotics for several months after that well they're dealing with trauma um shifting the kind of protein that they eat obviously eating much more fish and much less red meat which is pro-inflammatory yeah also suggest supplementary omega-3 supplementary fish oil because that's important for brain healing and gut healing as well fibre is perhaps even more important than it is with more chronic conditions because it's feeding the microbiome which in turn is stimulating the vagus nerve in appropriate ways too so that the brain functions properly we used to call a fiber now we call it prebiotics yeah which could be called food yes absolutely that's the kind of diet and then and then paying attention to two other things that you may want to add to that diet for example turmeric which I know is something that you use as part of your work with chronic illness it's perhaps even more important after trauma because inflammation is an extremely important part of what trauma does it promotes inflammation promotes inflammation everywhere in the body in the brain q and brain two at which causes symptoms are depression anxiety difficulty focusing irritability all of those things are compounded by the damage that's been done to the gut so if we begin to come back into balance through eating this appropriate healthy diet we're going to be in better shape the other thing is that it would also be important to use a high dose multivitamin multi-mineral in recent years there have been some studies done initially in New Zealand after the earthquake there randomized control trial population trial using a multivitamin multi-mineral at versus a placebo for people who'd been through the earthquake and those people who took the multivitamin multi-mineral and these people didn't even change their diet particularly but just taking the multivitamin multi-mineral helped to reduce the symptoms of post-traumatic stress they were less anxious their mood was better they were able to focus better so that's an important especially I remember reading in a paper years ago about Kosovo where you worked and they found that people who were in the war zone had much higher excretion of magnesium and magnesium is what we call the relaxation mineral yes it helps you calm down to sleep to relax your muscles your nervous systems helps with anxiety then all the stress we have causes all this chronic magnesium loss it increases vitamin loss and so we can actually help to fix that by replacing some of these nutrients it and it's vitamin loss at a time when we need them more because when were under stress we need higher levels of many nutrients so that's why it's important to supplement even the healthy diet with those with the supplement with supplements since trauma is kept in both the mind and the body it makes sense that what and how we eat can be instrumental to long-lasting healing additionally practices such as deep breathing meditation dancing and art therapy have all been shown to be effective tools to support the brain and the body it can feel like trauma is something that will always be with us but accessible methods for healing are proving otherwise and giving thousands of people a new lease on life I hope you enjoyed this mini episode of the doctors pharmacy podcast until next time [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Mark Hyman, MD

Views: 24,998

Keywords: james gordon, dr. jim gordon, dr. mark hyman, the doctor’s farmacy, trauma, ptsd, healing trauma, gut health, trauma diet, mental health

Id: 6Qwgu_tuH0Q

Length: 9min 42sec (582 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 31 2020