IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) is a bit of a diagnosis when other possible causes of your symptoms have been eliminated. We can also easily include all of those given a diagnosis of constipation or diarrhea. Therefore, the acronym IBS includes tens of millions of people. And whoever you are, you really don’t care about how you´re labeled, or at least you shouldn´t. You should care about how to resolve your symptoms and go on to lead a more enjoyable life.
Sadly, there is a massive industry built to address symptoms, which is philosophically wrong. There are muscle relaxants, anti-diarrhea products, laxatives, products for gas and many more. None of these get to the root cause. When you address it, then you begin to change your lifestyle from one of symptom management to one of better health.
So, what´s at the root cause? It´s your gastrointestinal microbiome. The massive collection of little critters that live inside of you. You can learn to live in harmony with it, or you can do battle with it. When you treat it right, it will treat you right.
Your gastrointestinal microbiome takes a number of hits over the years. Whatever we ingest effects it. Anything. Antibiotics and PPIs (proton pump inhibitors) are two compounds which dramatically effect it for the worse. Your diet is another huge consideration. When these and other factors drive your microbiome into dysbiosis, your immune system goes to war with the bad actors who have become more numerous than they should be.
This leads to the symptoms you´ve come to call bloating, diarrhea, constipation and more. From my perspective, these are consequences of something you should better understand. As the former director of medical education for a microbiome firm, I now have my own platform to educate everyone who´s curious to learn.
Believe it or not, there is a tremendous amount of data on this. I have reviewed all of the human fecal microbiome data for IBS. There is an average microbial fingerprint which becomes evident when one considers all of the data points. And the data is rather consistent from country to country. The same bacteria which are good actors in the United States, are also good actors in any other country. The same is true for the bad actors.
Once you begin to understand the interaction between the bacteria and your immune system within your gastrointestinal microbiome, you´ll begin to understand how my recommendations work. I have helped many people in the past. People who had suffered for years, who had been to see one practitioner after another, but to no avail. If you´re fed up with a lack of answers, why not try something different. First, it requires a different philosophy, as discussed previously. Then it requires an intelligent approach to address the root cause. And you may be thinking, “he´s just going to recommend probiotics.” Actually, no I won´t. And if you watch my presentations, I explain everything in detail. Perhaps in too much detail.
You can start by watching my free presentation entitled, “Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and the Microbiome.” You can find this presentation on my YouTube channel or in the Microbiome University tab on my website. And if you’re still hungry for more information after that, I have something on every conceivable topic on the microbiome, and I show you the data to support everything I say. Is anyone else doing that?
In our world as it is, we all now have to be our own health advocates. With a broken government, food and medical system, you need to take charge of your healthcare. So, educate yourself, as best you can. This is why I’ve launched my educational platform. For you. If you think your health would be well served by addressing your microbiome, you can visit the Protocols tab on my website, and for the mere price of a cup of coffee, you can find a science-based IBS protocol which may dramatically improve your quality of life.
