THE MICROBIOME HEALING CONNECTION Part One: Healthy Guts in Humans & Earth

Are microbes in soil connected to Us?  This episode is dedicated to our guts, the intuition we hold & the mystery of our connection to this vast planet.  I will discuss fungi benefits, soil microbes, and what makes us truly healthy at the core!

Join me in this 2-3 part series on the importance of Skin-Gut-Brain Health, which is really total Body-Planet Health(:

References:

Test your microbial health
https://www.biohmhealth.com/products/gut-report-kit-new

Kill off parasites
https://healthforcesuperfoods.com/product/scram/

Skin microbiome
https://www.evanhealy.com/blogs/stories/yogurt-the-skin-gut-connection-it-s-all-about-the-microbiome?

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Thank you so much for joining me today! I strongly Believe that we are all Connected and want to Share our gifts with One another. Remember how amazing you are, Never Give Up, We can help and Support each other along this Crazy Journey...I'm going to keep Sharing what I can with all of You, just wish I could do more each day, Life is passing by too quickly! This podcast is new and will be ever-evolving & improving as long as possible...Please share this with others who could benefit from this information(:

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Transcript

1:03

Hello and welcome to today's episode. This episode is going to be at least two parts. It just would've been too long, and I'm trying to keep my episodes under 20 minutes. So today is part one of the microbiome healing, connection, healthy guts in humans and earth. And I was inspired. I mean, I of course wanted to talk about this anyway. I know it's a hot topic. In the last five to 10 years, there's been more and more research done and people are becoming more aware of the importance of a healthy gut and of beneficial bacteria and the harmful use of antibiotics and whatnot. So I was inspired listening to one of my favorite podcasts know thyself, and I have not finished listening to this episode yet, but last week he had on a doctor who I think is a gastroenterologist, and he was talking about the gut. And I was inspired by something that he said, and I'm like, you know what? That's going to do my episode on just obviously in a different be love manner. So today I'm going to focus on just an explanation of microbes, how important they are, and also talk about some of the synchronicities that the earth carries with its own microbes in the soil and what we have in our bodies, and I'm sure animals and insects and everything that's living on this planet naturally is carrying similarities with these microbes. And that's why I believe we're all connected, and I think that's fascinating. Get to it. I wrote my blog. I just got finished. I usually get done with this on Sunday. It's now Monday, probably noon. The time just changed, and it's throwing me off a bit. Our bodies are home to thriving ecosystems known as microbiomes. So our microbiome in our body actually learned about this with soil before I learned about it with the body as much as I did with soil, because I used to be a farmer. Actually, I'll just go ahead and say I was a cannabis farmer as well as growing my own food, fruits, some fruits, actually, that's how I started with some fruit trees and then vegetables, herbs going into the cannabis culture that was booming up here about 10, 20 years ago. I slowly have gotten out of it the last decade now that it's not as lucrative, although I do still love growing the cannabis plant, and it's a passion of mine. And I hope to do that every year on a small scale for my own use, my own products to share with friends and family. And if you don't know, I do make some products. And if there is cannabis in any of my products that is sourced from my dear friend's farm who is licensed or on a small scale of the herb that I have grown that is legal. And so anyhow, I am segueing, but I just wanted you to know that I do have a farming background and I did study soil, soil microbiology a bit. I'm a certified permaculturalist, although I'm not actively practicing permaculture at the moment, but I did learn quite a bit. This was about 10 years ago. And so when I learned about microbes in the soil and how important they were for the plant's health, it was they consisted of bacteria, fungi, these other ArcHa type, I almost want to say like insects. These living organisms that were ArcHa are in the archaic family. And there were lots of different parts that make up the soil, lots of living organisms going on that make up the microbiome that's underneath the earth's crust. And so this is naturally happening. And this fungi and bacteria, if we just think of that, there's micro ie. That's a type of fungus that is miraculous, and it helps to feed the plants with the bacteria that it's given. So the healthy bacteria and the nutrients and the micro distributes it through the soil and into the plants, and it's this whole communication system. And I know Paul Stats talks about this with fungi and how they communicate with each other and the other plants that are living around them and the trees and the whole system is in communication through these microbes and the fungi. And it's really fascinating. And so I got to thinking about it more something that was said in this podcast and how our bodies also have these microbes, and I wanted to investigate more on how similar they are. And yes, there are many that are very similar and maybe they were all similar when we were born, when we came here, maybe we were just even more connected. And our similarities were just that we are all one, right? We're all one living. We have different bodies. Our plants are trees. We're birds, we're squirrels, were humans, were all these different entities in the world all working as a whole, as one. But we all share the microbes. We all share these organisms that are to keep us healthy in so many ways to bring nutrients to our body. And so if you think about this one fact that we are more bacteria and microbes than anything else, and that's fact. So it's been scientifically studied now that we have about 40 trillion microbes within our body, or maybe it's just the bacterias that much, but that for cells, we all think of our bodies being made up as cells. Our cells are only like 30 trillion, and some people have more or less, we probably don't have the exact amount, but just think trillions and trillions. I don't want to sound like you know who, I don't think he says trillions. I think he's more billions and millions or whatever. Sorry. It just reminded me of something and I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, I don't want to sound like that. So we are mostly made up of these microbes more than anything else in our bodies as well as the planet. These microbes are abundant in, I mean, we can't see them most of the time unless we're looking under a microscope. That's how we would see them. And then we're like, wow, my gosh, look at all this stuff we can't see normally, right? But these microbes, this microbial family that is universal, including within our own bodies, makes up more matter than anything else on this planet. And that's just amazing. That's an amazing fact. That's just like, okay, well, they must have some power. We wouldn't be living unless they were here, unless this group, this family, were living and breathing and bringing life to everything. And so that's why it's so important we're finding out now. I found out back in the day with farming how important it was for the plant's health because we're all trying to make our plants as healthiest as possible. Now it's like, okay, now we're finding out more and more about our bodies and how important it's for our bodies to have these microbial activity. And we're talking about supporting a healthy digestion because our gut digestion, which is not just our stomach, it starts in our stomach digesting our food, but we're talking about our intestines and that whole system is bigger than our other organs, and it is doing a lot to feed us and to bring nutrients into our body and to heal us. And so we have to really focus if we want to be healthy on feeding this microbiome that we have. And many of us have destroyed this through overuse of antibiotics such as myself. I was one of those not knowing or subject to as a child, taking way too many antibiotics and just making me sicker and sicker and sicker. And that's why I ended up on the path that I'm on was my own doing of being like, I'm sick and tired of being sick. And so in my teenage years, not until I was about 17, I decided I needed to do something differently, and So anyways, I'm just kind of freely speaking right now, but I'm going to get into some data here and talk a little bit more on what I've written. So my blog is found on Substack. I'll put a link in the show notes. So these living, breathing communities of beneficial bacteria play a vital role in protecting and balancing the systems they inhabit. Just as the gut microbiome supports digestion, immune function and systemic balance, the earth we walk upon and that feeds us also inhabits a similar microbiome system. These beneficial microorganisms extend into the fungi, plants and trees that grow from the food that these organisms provide. Healthy flora equals healthy people and animals. When the soil is rich with microbial activity, then and only then can it provide to what's above the most nutrient rich food and medicine. When the soil microbes are destroyed by pollutants and pesticides, we're talking about soil or even antibiotics, I consider that a pollutant. Then the food above will lack crucial microbial activity, pesticides, monoculture, farming, which is just growing one crop and rows and rows and rows, or just the same crop monocropping, not biodiversity, not growing with companion plants and not having a biodiverse farm. So monocropping and poor soil health all will reduce microbial diversity leading to weaker plant nutrition, which can negatively impact the gut microbiome when we eat those foods. Some key points of connection between us and our natural environment in nature are bacillus and lactobacillus species. These are two bacterias that are very well known and studied, exist in both soil and the human gut playing roles in decomposition and digestion. The actino bacteria in soil help break down organic matter while in humans, they aid in digestion and immune function. The microrisal fungi, which I got really involved in, and I know how to see it now, if I'm out in the wild, and there's some places that you'll see a bunch of it, or if you're gardening or something, you'll come across It's like this white hairy stuff that gets in the soil, and it means the soil is healthy. It's really good to have there. People buy it if they don't have it and add it to their soil. So the Mya and beneficial gut fungi share roles in nutrient exchange and immune modulation biodiverse. Soil microbes support plant health as diverse gut microbes strengthen digestion and immunity. Diversity equals resilience. Soil microbes break down organic material to release the nutrients, much like gut microbes break down food for nutrient absorption within US decomposition and healthy digestion. Overuse of antibiotics in both agriculture and medicine affects microbial health in soil and humans causing resistance issues. Exposure to soil microbes through gardening without gloves, touching plants, and being outdoors helps train the human immune system. This is why I believe we feel so good and receive an instant healing effect when in nature, because we are so connected, it's like our microbes are talking to each other somehow because we're sharing what nature has. We have these similar microbes, and so it's pretty miraculous. So there is an old friends hypothesis that suggests beneficial soil microbes like mycobacterium vacay, reduce inflammation and boost mood when humans are exposed to them. I've been told many years ago by a functional medicine chiropractor to get my hands and feet in the soil more as a way to get more beneficial microbes into my body. There are trillions of microbes, roughly so roughly 40 trillion like I was saying before, and that's more than our cellular makeup. This living family is bigger than man or womankind, only a few are successfully captured by means of supplementation and or created by fermentation of specific foods like yogurt, krauts, miso, kombucha, et cetera. This is why it's so important to avoid the use of antibiotics, which we know destroy our healthy microbes as well. Overuse of these drugs as widespread, rampant in our culture. This has led to an epidemic of various illnesses that we are now discovering most stem from unhealthy gut microbes. And for myself, I literally have struggled my entire life. I'm so much healthier than I used to be, but it took me, it was a journey, and I maybe would've gained my health back quicker if it would've been easier for me to be stricter in some ways in my twenties and when I was learning more. But I raised four children, and it's hard when you're raising kids and you're tempted and you've got candida out of control in your body already to not eat sugar. Of course, kids want to eat sweet stuff and yummy stuff and stuff. I was pretty strict on that compared to most moms. That's definitely for sure. It took me many years to really get a hold on the overgrowth of candida, which we'll talk about in a minute. So our largest bodily organ, the skin also is home to this thriving ecosystem known as the microbiome, our skin, which makes sense. It's like covering our entire outer shield, right? Our body is covered by skin that has a microbiome as well. These living, breathing communities of beneficial bacteria play a balancing the systems they inhabit. Just as the gut microbiome within supports digestion, immune function and systemic balance, the skin microbiome acts as a protective barrier. Regulating hydration helps the skin adapt to environmental challenges. And when these two ecosystems are in harmony, they reflect vitality from the inside out. Just as an imbalanced gut. Microbiome can lead to digestive issues and inflammation, a disruptive skin microbiome due to over cleansing, using harsh products, environmental factors, stress. All these can lead to an imbalance, which often manifests as dryness, redness, inflammation or breakouts. So that's what can happen too when our skin microbiome gets disrupted. That's why yogurt is so beneficial as a skin mask because it contains these good bacteria that will help feed that microbiome. So don't be afraid to go barefoot and get your fingernails dirty in nature. That is a healthy thing to do. Now, I didn't talk about this in this episode, but maybe I can touch on it next time or it could be an episode. All of its own is parasites. We know parasites live amongst us, and when we're putting our hands in soil, we might think, oh, that's really gross. What's getting into my body that way? Well, there's definitely some healthy microbes, we know that. But there also could be some parasitic activity. So I think what's important to note here is that parasites are an epidemic. Most people carry parasites. Some have it more worse than others, and it just like bad bacteria. We kind of know when there's bad bacteria in our body or something we ate or something's not right and we want to get rid of the bad bacteria, or even there are certain colds, flus, stuff like that that might be a bacteria ridden, not a virus. And we definitely don't want that in our body, so we get rid of it, right? And there's ways of course, getting rid of it without using antibiotics, natural antibiotics from herbs and whatnot that you can use and things to support your body so your body can get rid of that bad bacteria. But parasites, and I don't know why I was reminded about this, something I was going to say. Oh, I guess the fingernails and getting them dirty in nature. It's important to note that there is a possibility of this, but with a healthy gut, with a healthy microbiome, your body, these parasites won't be able to take hold as much as you would think. You're not going to get sick from parasites and bad bacteria and viruses as much if your body has enough of the healthy beneficial microflora. And that is because it's almost like there's a balance going on within. And as long as you have enough of the good flora, you'll be fine. And it's never going to hurt to take supplements every once in a while that help rid your body of parasites. There are many herbs, even charcoal helps to bind the parasites out and cleanse, do a flush, do cleanses are very healthy to do now and again, and that will help rid your body of parasites. They're going to feed on the bad bacteria they're going to feed on. They're going to feed on your good bacteria too. That's the thing with parasites is you don't want them to get out of control. Same with candida, which we all have in our bodies. And some say we all have parasites in our bodies too. It's just natural. It's like a natural part of our microbiome, right? They're like part of it. But where it gets dangerous or where you start feeling ill from it is when they outnumber, they start outnumbering the good. And that's why it's really important to keep a healthy balance, meaning that you want more of the good healthy flora. You want your gut to be healthy and healed and not have a leaky gut, which we'll talk about more next week, and get that balance happening within so that you don't have the parasite potential overcoming you and trying to take over and causing symptoms. So they may be there, but you won't notice them if you'll know when you have a healthy gut because your health will feel balanced, you'll feel you'll have energy, you won't have digestion issues, you won't be getting sick a lot, your mood will be good. And so there's a lot of things that we know when our health is good or not. So there are tools to get rid of parasites. That's the good news. We have lots of tools at our fingertips these days. There's also test kits, and I looked up a few, and I haven't actually ordered one online. I've done a couple tests through a couple of doctors before, but there is a test kit that you can get that I'll put a link to in the show notes. That looks like a really good one. It is almost $200 I think is what I remember. But there's probably ones that cost less money or maybe even if you have a good doctor, they could do testing on you. But if you want to get your microbiome tested just to see what's in there and test for the bacterias, the parasites, the viruses, whatever, so you know what you have and what percentages and what you need to do after that and go from there, that would be a good thing to look into. So what about the miraculous fungi king? I put king dom, but then I was like, I really like the word and it's women's month. So yeah, I'm putting queendom. What about this queendom that we have? I was curious. So I wanted to look into more on fungi, and I love talking about fungi, endophytic fungi in the soil protect plants from diseases much like beneficial gut fungi like Charmy bia. So sce belardi is a fungi that is very beneficial for our gut health. You can get this as a supplement. Some people don't have enough of it or maybe none of it anymore. I think antibiotics really destroy this one. And there have been people that have traveled and they end up getting a bad bacteria in their gut that they just cannot seem to get rid of. And this one fungus, usually in the probiotic section, a healthy microbe called smis ti is very beneficial if you've tried everything else to get rid of bad bacteria from traveling. So this can help maintain balance against pathogens and some mushroom derived compounds like the beta glucans benefit, both soil, microbial life, human immune function, and so much more mushrooms can feed beneficial microbes in the gut acting as prebiotics to support a healthy microbiome. Prebiotics feed our healthy bacteria, so their food for the bacteria that we have, so our healthy bacteria need to eat so they can grow naturally. And this helps. So you're not thinking, God, do I have to take probiotics all the time? And probiotics aren't a cheap supplement. A good one can cost at least a dollar or two a day. And so feeding what you have with prebiotic fiber is very beneficial. We know now and however, they do not promote harmful bacteria or fungal overgrowth like candida. So we're talking about mushrooms right now. I struggled with this dysbiosis, that's what it was called from my naturopath years your system is just all out of balance. And my gut was for many years, due to overuse of the antibiotics in my childhood, this made me fear all fungi. I was thinking fungi, mushrooms, that's like mold, that's like fungus. That's like, oh, that's not going to be good for my candida overgrowth, which is also a fungus, right? I was like, oh, no, that's definitely can't be good. Well, I was wrong. I learned one day back. I figured out it was in 2002. I learned that medicinal fungi, mushrooms actually help heal even candy to albicans a natural fungus that our body has. And that's fine to have in our bodies in small amounts. We all have yeast and it's actually part of our microbiome. But what I learned on this fungi walk that I was going on with this fungi expert that, no, I was wrong. That's not true. And so I was like, oh, well that was good news at the time. I was struggling with candida at that time. And so I kept researching it and learning more and checking it out and started adding fungi mushrooms to my diet, which actually probably really helped me. So if kept in check with a healthy gut, symptoms will disappear. Okay, we're talking about candida. It took me a few years of cleansing overgrowth and healing my microbiome with diet changes and many probiotics, which I still consume daily natural antifungal, antibacterial properties that help prevent overgrowth of bad microbes. So these healthy fungi in mushrooms that are, I call them medicinal mushrooms, not like just the ones you would buy at the store, like the little cini or button mushrooms, and those ones, I'm sure those have some beta glucans and there's some potential health benefits, but those ones aren't really as medicinal as the ones I'm about to talk about. Mushrooms like Rishi Turkey tail Chaga and lion's mane contain beta glucans and polysaccharides. Now, I'm just mentioning these, but there are many more. Two types of prebiotic fiber, the beta glucans and the polysaccharides. This is like we're talking about pre prebiotic fiber that feeds your bacteria, your healthy bacteria, your probiotics like bifido bacteria and lactobacillus. This helps crowd out the harmful microbes and supports gut balance. Miraculous to think that we have naturally growing antifungal and antibacterial medicine that helps prevent overgrowth of bad microbes, medicinal mushrooms and fungi, increased diversity of good bacteria like Turkey tail mushrooms that are rich in polypeptides PCP and PSK, which stimulate beneficial gut bacteria growth and improved digestion. Rishi and Chaga support a diverse microbiome, reducing inflammation, supporting digestion, and improving immune function. Chaga has one of the highest oric, ORAC values measured oric AKA oxygen radical absorbence capacity is a test tube analysis that measures the total antioxidant power of foods and other biochemical substances. A few benefits of consuming highly rated substances are raising the antioxidant power in your body by 10 to 25%, and prevention of losing long-term memory. Lion's mane on that note, is known for repairing the gut lining, reducing leaky gut syndrome symptoms, and thus supporting the gut brain connection now showing up on produce shelves. Yeah, I first tried Lion's Maine. How many years ago was that? I feel like it was, I dunno, roughly a decade ago. I went to Florida. It was the one and only time I went to Florida, although I will be going there again. My partner's from Florida, but we weren't together then. And I went out there to visit a friend and we went to a forest in Florida, which I thought was very interesting. I didn't know what to expect going to Florida, but they have a lot of similar microclimates as California does in some ways. I mean, there's definitely some differences too. But she was really into fungi foraging and we found lion's mane, and I was like, wow. So that was my first time finding lion's mane in the wild since I've found it a few other times. But we took it home. And I'll just never forget this memory of her sauteing at this lion's mane, visiting her at her little home in Florida. It was how she made it. I've tried to make it a few times and I didn't like it as much, but it's definitely different. It's definitely unique and it looks like a almost brain-like, well, I wouldn't really say it looks, I almost think Rishi looks more brain-like, but Lions, Maine, it's white. You've probably seen it and it could be shaped kind of like a brain in some ways, but it's got these hairy kind of 10 coming off of it. This, I don't know, it's just hard to describe and it's different than any And so yeah, very good for your brain. And it makes sense if it's helping your gut lining and repairing the gut to help with the brain. And maybe that's why it does help with the brain, because miraculously healing that connection between the gut and the brain so that we can actually think better. So nowadays, being aware of our microbiome connection is ever so important. True health cannot be attained without the connection to self and to nature. We are divinely connected through this universal communication that is beyond scientific research. And I'm hoping that this will remain, that there will always be some sense of mystery. I believe there will be. And so next week I'll be discussing this broad topic more. Part two, I will go over the amazing benefits that our microbiome will provide if we nourish this part of self. And maybe it's possible that our intuitive nature, aka intuition, is really our microbes speaking to us. That's some food for thought more on this soon. Take care. Have a beautiful day. Stay strong, healing your microbiome. Or let's just say your gut health, taking care of that is so vital to your health. I can't stress it enough. And so if you do one thing, work on that and that will help your overall health. Please share this with someone that you think would benefit from it, and I would really appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to give me a five star review on wherever you're listening. And I will catch you next week. Bye.