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Overweight? a must-read-book on microbiome is finally available!

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Dr. Kasia Kines, Nutritionist, CEO and founder of EBV Educational Institute
Virtual clinic serving the US and globally
[email protected]

You can find an older blog on this website where I take you on a journey of the microbiome and its remarkable importance for our health. We are learning so much more about our microbiota! There is more and more research on its ability to regulate your weight as well. Did you know? There is a medical procedure you may not have heard about called fecal transplant. A healthy donor donates some of his or her fecal matter to a recipient, who may be suffering from C. difficile or, more recently, IBD.  It has been shown that healthy “bugs” living in the donor’s stool can repopulate the recipient’s colon and allow the persons suffering from C. difficile to heal. This, in itself, is very powerful. If you change the microbiota in your gastrointestinal tract, you can repair many aspects of your health. Remember, much of your immune system is in your gut. However, there is more to it.

Gut bacteria can influence whether we are slim or fat!!! There have been cases of a slim recipient of a fecal transplant becoming overweight without any particular reason or dietary changes  and not being able to lose that weight- and this has been associated with the obesity of the donor. It has been well documented that overweight and obese individuals have a different microbiome than people of normal weight. I have to warn my patients waiting for fecal transplant to make sure they know the donor’s weight history.

So if we have low numbers of our bacteria, are we going to get heavier??? Looking at the recent studies, it is quite a possibility!!! We, as a nation, have quite a poor microbioma in general. We eat antibiotics-fey meat and poultry and there is enough residue of antibiotics in the meat for our good bacteria to be affected. We are given antibiotics indiscriminately, killing our good bacteria in the process. We eat little fiber, a source of “prebiotics”, the food for the good bacteria, so our good bugs starve. Then we have a lot of stress and little sleep, which also kills the good bacteria. We have to rebuild our microbiome and it is remarkably EASY!!! We improve our diet, we add fermented foods, we replace a side dish of potato cups with a side dish of sauerkraut, we sip on organic miso soup and more. 

And now we have a new book that has all the tools you need to rebalance your gut flora and as a result, lose the weight that you need to lose.  Our very own Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins’ Dr Gerard Mullin, top authority on gut microbe, and one of the most accomplished integrative functional gastroenterologists in the country has just published his new book on this subject, after watching for years how his patients lose unwanted pounds when we would rebuild their microbiota. I am proud to say that i have had an opportunity to work with Dr Mullin as has entrusted many of his patients to my care over the years, so this book is even more special. The right food is powerful medicine, her says. His three-phased approach to changing the balance of bacteria in the gut promises to boost your metabolism and help you lose weight for good. His new book, The Gut Balance Revolution is a step-by-step plan using food to reboot, rebalance and renew our gut bacteria for optimal health. It is a great book, very well written, and it is complete with shopping lists, recipes, research and great stories. Phase 1 is a little challenging, but it is worth it and only temporary and will allow you to reboot your metabolism. If you want to learn more about the subject from Dr Mullin,  here is Dr Mullin’s recent article on the topic

Some other older books on microbiota you may be interested in:

1. S.K. Dash, PhD. The Consumer’s Guide to Probiotics 2005

2. Martin J. Blaser, MD. Missing Microbes 2014

Dr. Kasia Kines, Nutritionist, CEO and founder of EBV Educational Institute
Virtual clinic serving the US and globally
[email protected]

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If you want to transform your life, if you want health and wellness, if you want peace of mind, there isn’t a better investment than working with Kasia.~ Beth