26 | How To Reverse IBS Symptoms – Straight-talking From An Expert Dietitian | Mike Sweeney

I have two young kids . I haven't slept in six years , like so , if I can jump .

What really makes Mike's story so interesting and why he has such success with his patients is that he's actually been there himself . Mike had IBS and they actually developed the disorder while working in the NHS . Mike also struggled with obesity , alcoholism and depression and anxiety , and he talks all about this stuff quite openly . But that's all in the past .

Mike's in ridiculously good shape now and he now uses his knowledge and his own personal experiences to help other people get their gut health and their health overall back in check . So in this episode Mike's gonna talk about why he doesn't follow the low FODMAP diet and while he's actually trained in it , he hasn't once had to share it with his patients .

Instead , mike is gonna share a simple tweak that he recommends to people with IBS . This little tweak that they make to their diet can really help get symptoms under control . He also covers constipation in this episode and a cheap solution that you can buy in most supermarkets . That's all natural and it has worked with lots of his patients .

Those specific pieces of advice are near the end of the episode , but I highly recommend that you listen to all of Mike's chat here , because he shares so much amazing advice . Okay , let's go for it right now . Mike , great to chat with you today . So you've been a busy man over the past few years . You worked as a dietitian in the NHS .

You then left and set up your own nutritional software company . You've been carrying out all sorts of nutritional research as well , and then you've gone back and you're working in the NHS again as a dietitian . Tell us about what that day-to-day job involves and why you're so passionate about all things nutrition .

So day to day , obviously , I deal with a lot of patients with varying clinical conditions , everything from gut health issues , which we're gonna talk about today , ibs , crohn's , ulcerative colitis , lots of allergy stuff , tons of diabetes and obesity and cardiovascular disease , as you might expect , and then just a bunch of nutrition support type stuff , which is elderly

people , trying to help them maintain their mobility and stuff . So quite a full-on , stressful job . But what gets me up in the morning and keeps me excited is the patient outcomes . Like that is what I live for , that is the bread and butter . Fortunately , I get fairly good patient outcomes .

That's what gives me the energy to keep going , because working for the NHS is super stressful . It's the largest employer in the UK , I think 1.4 million employees . At this point . It is also statistically the most stressful place to work for lots of reasons .

So yeah , without seeing my patients just get an incredible outcomes , I probably would have quit a long time ago .

I imagine you get the exact same thing , but it's quite funny though , because it wasn't always that way for you , was it ? Let's talk about how life used to be for you and how unhealthy you were .

So if I was to start right at the beginning and you're right , like it's definitely been a roller coaster up to this point lots of health challenges as you're alluding to and we'll get into in a second , but before I do so I mentioned that like I think that's partly what makes me quite good at my job , in that I can relate to most of my patients and most

of the struggles that they have , because I have either lived that or I'm living that depending on when you catch me , you know what part of my life cycle I'm in and so I think they find it really refreshing when they come across a healthcare professional that is able to , I suppose , empathize , as the official word , but just able to relate to them and just

not judge them and just kind of understand what they're going through and help sort of guide them in the right way .

My health challenges for me personally started when , as a teenager , you know kind of getting bullied and stuff that led to a lot of emotional eating , that led to becoming overweight , that led me into the gym as a teenager , got rid of all of that weight , got in really good shape for a number of years and then , as you do , you know , as you kind of grow

older , go into the workforce , the gym slips like it does for most people stress levels go up , kind of struggled with that and then obviously got overweight again and at that point decided , right , I need to , because I still didn't understand what was going on . Right , I'd be .

Prior to that was like following the magazines , following , you know , a few little books and stuff , so I didn't really have too much understanding of , like , well , why does obesity happen ? Why are certain foods really easy to overeat , and all of that kind of stuff .

And anyway , that frustration led me into university , which is an interesting story in and of itself , because I never finished school I have no GCSEs , I never went to college Somehow at my mid twenties managed to blag my way into what is considered the leading sports science university in the country , so Loughborough University .

I'm not still not sure how it happened . All I know is I rocked up to the interview . I had a backpack full of all the sports nutrition books that I'd read and when they asked me the question which I knew they would , which was you know , why should we allow you onto this course Like all of the other people coming onto the course .

They all have A levels and you know all of that kind of stuff . And I just emptied my bag on the table and I was like , look , I don't know anything about A levels or exams or nothing . What I do know is I really love this stuff . It's fascinating , and I'm just here to learn .

And she was surprised , the lady interviewing me and impressed enough , thankfully , to let me on the course .

But then yet again kind of came out of university , went into the workforce , fell into the trap of letting work take over my life , stress levels through the roof , had a few kids and then , yeah , kind of like , lived in this period of burnout for a while Again , just gained loads of weight . Mental health went down the drain , developed sort of .

I was wondering if I'd developed depression and anxiety , if I always had it , and was just never aware . I'm not , never too sure .

But during that time period anyway , you know , got diagnosed with a few different mental health conditions , got put on medication , went through loads of training , cbt and all sorts of stuff to try to figure out how to get through all of that In that same time develop , got health issues , developed IBS , all the lovely symptoms that come with that .

And obviously , surprise , surprise , I went through a really dark period , probably the worst ever . During that time , you know , drinking alcohol every day .

At that point I was drinking like 10 to 15 points of beer every day , which was crazy really that I was able to hold down at that specific time , as running a business a really successful business as well and when I think about it now I'm like how was that even possible ?

So it's been a real roller coaster and you know , obviously you learn a ton of stuff getting through all of that . And just to fast track the story a bit at this point , I've been off my medication now for my mental health medication for like five years now . I've been symptom free of IBS for eight years .

I feel good symptom free , like yourself , you know , keeping your gut health in check just through lifestyle modification . And that's where I'm at now and again , that kind of feeds into your original question of like what gets you going every day ?

And it is that it's like well , I've done it and I tell all my patients all of the time this doesn't require motivation , it's not willpower , it's not discipline , because I have none of it . I have two young kids . I haven't slept in six years Like so , if I can jump , I know exactly .

So I tell them , like , look like if I can do this , you know , like like it's possible for you 100% . Yeah , I just think the potential within healthcare and even the fitness industry to change the world is astronomical in my opinion and I think it's a crime against humanity that it's not doing that .

And before people jump on me to say like , oh , you sound like a conspiracy theorist , you only need to look at the statistics all across primary care and the community in the UK . I'm not saying none of what we're doing is working . All I'm saying is everything's getting worse Diabetes , heart disease , hypertension , gut health issues , depression , mental health .

50% of the country are on SSRIs like right now , like 50% , it's crazy , yeah , and do you know what , mike ?

Now , what I think is really refreshing about what you do and we spoke about this earlier is how honest you are with your patients , about what you went through and what I love and I've got a note of it here . I'm going to read it from your Twitter account Mid 2020 , I weighed 246 pounds . I was a drunk . I had IBS .

I was on SSRIs for depression and anxiety . By mid 2022 , I weighed 187 pounds , with abs , sober , ibs , controlled , got myself off SSRIs , all using food , fitness and philosophy . It's just such an amazing turnaround in what's only like a couple of years . Let's talk about the food , the fitness and philosophy .

Let's elaborate more on how these helped you completely transform yourself .

One of the things that they teach is that to only focus on what you can control you can say that to like 100 people and they'll be like yeah , of course , but most people actually don't do it and to give people a sense of how effective it can be if you actually live it , though like I've literally talked myself out of panic attacks just by remembering that

quote and the way I've done it is in the past . I haven't had a panic attack for a long time now , but in the past , when I have had a panic attack , what I would do is grab a four-bit of paper and a pen , draw a line down the middle and write can't control , can control . And then the column of can't control .

Literally I just write down everything that I'm stressing about and what's going through my mind in that moment , and I just filter it that way . And then very quickly I realize , wow , all the anxiety I'm experiencing is all in this can't control box . And then literally by reminding myself visually on the paper well , the bit .

Second control is this , this and this , so I'm gonna do that , panic attack stops , anxiety reduced , gone , et cetera , like that's how effective that stuff can be , and I think that's why I love stoicism , just because it is really practical , especially in modern times things are becoming more fast-paced , more stressful than ever .

It just seems like the world is melting at the moment . Stoices can be an anchor for people in terms of helping them to stay sane . I know that's how I definitely use it . Yeah , and that kind of feeds into the mental aspect .

Really , I've always found in my experience of my own health and , of course , with my patients , is like , unless you're mentally in the game , you're not in it at all , and we see this all the time . You probably see it with your friends and clients or people that you work with , or even yourself .

If people say , for example , they've got a holiday in 10 weeks and they think , right , I'm going to start a diet plan , I'm going to join the HIIT class or I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that Because they're not really in it for the right reasons , like mentally .

So nine times out of 10 , people fail at those goals and even if they stick to it and they get in shape , and they're in shape for the holiday as soon as they come back . They don't carry it on , and I think that's all a mental game , and stoicism is really good for that , fitness wise , for me .

I just love lifting weights and it's not anything to do with . Obviously . I like the way it makes me look , but the main reason I go and lift weights is because I like how it makes me feel afterward . That is it , and again , you can tell that to 100 people , and 100 people will say yes .

Of course , nobody does it , though , and in fact , it's taking behavior change research 30 years to figure out that people need to enjoy what they're doing , otherwise , they will not stick to it . In the research behavior change researchers they've tried everything .

They've tried giving people bribes , they've tried legislation and policy , they've tried all sorts of stuff , like take the elevators away and all of this stuff , and in the end , the conclusion they've come to is well , people need to enjoy whatever it is , whether it's dancing or swimming or rock climbing or I know you're into outdoors stuff , so climbing up mountains

or whatever that looks like you just need to enjoy it . For example , people in the gym will say , like how are you so disciplined ? You hear all the time , you're really consistent . And I tell them like I have no more discipline or willpower than anybody , I just enjoy it . And if you just keep showing up , for me that's a big part of the battle .

When I was diagnosed with IBS , that was something I never actually really heard about , and Mike explains why that's something that he actually decided against doing himself , although he's actually trained in it .

. So that set me on a hunt for something else , looked at all the research as to where do all these symptoms come from , and if we drill down on it , in IBS at least , where all the symptoms come from is excess intestinal fermentation . So you know the bugs in your microbiome . We're just eating certain foods producing lots of gas .

We get pain , distention , bloating , diarrhea , constipation , acid reflux all the fun stuff stems from that . So that , interestingly though , when you look at , well , what foods ferment the most , well , it's starchy , carbohydrates , fibrous things and , of course , fodmaps , which are just specific types of sugars in lots of different foods .

So I was like , oh , that's interesting , note that . And then , well , I need to lose weight , so I need to reduce my calories . What's a really simple way to do that ? Well , I could just eat less starchy crap . That's quite easy . I love meat . I'll be quite straightforward .

And then , on the mental health side again , if you look at that research , it's still quite young in a research sense , but it's really fascinating in terms of lots of data coming out now and there's a study literally just published very recently on sort of ketogenic diet in various mental health conditions .

But back in 2020 , there was already data out showing that if you are producing a few more ketones , your brain might produce a bit more GABA and that can have anti anxiety effects , anti-depressant effects , etc . So I was like well , I want to do one thing right , like dietary wise .

If I want to do one thing and keep this really simple and tick all of these boxes like what can I do ? And I just came to the conclusion of I'm just going to do low carb . Right , like low carb , less calories , less fermentable stuff . So I thought my RBS should get better and then I might improve mentally . I don't know , let's see .

And that's kind of how I ended up where I am now . So , and that's what I did , and that's what I still do . That's what I live by , same as you , my RBS symptoms have gone . I'm not on medication anymore . You know I'm lean . I get stronger than gym . I like the food that I eat , so I look forward to every meal time .

So in terms of like , oh , how do you stick to your diet ? I don't need to try to stick to it because I just enjoy it . It sounds really obvious and simple , but again , it's taken behavior change . Research is 30 years to come to that conclusion . The only other thing I did was I gamified the whole thing .

So I drilled it down right food , focus and fitness . So I got three things that I need to do every day and I just identified one simple habit . So the food one was just basically , did I eat in a low carb way today , yes or no ? And if I went off just a tiny bit I would put no . So it's either a yes or no thing .

Fitness did I go to the gym today , yes or no ? And then focus ?

For me it was either did I read some stoicism today or did I do some meditation today , even if it's like a three minute meditation , and I just scored myself three points every day , 20 , 21 points in the week , and then every week , when I got to the end of the week , I would just , you know , sit and look at my score . So three every day .

And again , this is kind of what I teach a lot of my patients . It does not matter If I get to the end of the week and I've scored just three . It's irrelevant , nobody's judging you , nobody cares . The only question is how do we get that three to a five ? And then , once you've gotten to five , cool . How do we get from five to seven Fabulous .

And how do we get from seven to and you can see where that's going . You just build up and build up , and build up , and that's exactly what I did in the beginning . That's exactly the same thing that I do now , and I think I think even that is is a huge thing really in terms of just getting people to focus on progress and not perfection .

Like I know , you've had your your own health journey , dealing with your own gut health issues . I think when things are really shit and you just hate in life , you want things fixed , like now , right , and it's like you're not going to want unravel years of health issues in like six weeks .

So , yeah , if you can just focus on , how do I take a step or two forward , step or two forward , and then , before you know it , it's been three years . People are inviting you on the podcast , asking you how you did it .

But the beauty of of what you do and what you share with your patients , this honesty is that , yeah , I go to the gym , I train hard , I eat this really clean diet , a diet that I like a stick to , but I still have the days where I go off track . I'm not perfect , I'm not on it 100% , because that's what I'm like as well .

I mean , lasagna is my favorite food . I'll have a takeaway from the Chinese , but what I try to do is I just try to be good Monday to Friday , and I don't beat myself up , and then I get back on track . Yeah , no , you're definitely right .

Like I said to you earlier , like I like to have a few beers , I like to . You know , I still love bread . Bread's amazing , it tastes great . Doesn't do me any favors , but I will have it , you know , once in a while and I will go off track and eat those sorts of things .

And and like we spoke earlier , when , when I do , you know , these days , because I've obviously been in a good place for a while now , I do tend to find that , you know , I can get away with it for a day or two or three or maybe even four if I'm really lucky . But eventually it does catch .

Oh , you know , the acid reflux will start to come back , I'll start to look pregnant because I'm so all sorts of stuff happen . Like you can ask my wife , like one day I'm fine , the next day I seem like I'm dying of the flu , I'm like sneezing and all . Like it gets crazy . But , like I tell all of my like , you will do that .

You're human , you're going to make mistakes , but the big thing is that once you know what to do , it gives you a sense of control . So when all the symptoms are kicking off , you know what you've done and you know how to fix it .

So , definitely , you know a lot of my patients with IBA or you know , crohn's ulcerative itis except all these gut health issues . I think a big part of the stress is you don't know what the hell's going on .

You know a lot of people with IBS come to me and they'll say things like I feel like I'm eating healthy but I'm just getting worse and it's really stressing me out because I'm eating healthy , so shulima and body should be healthy , and obviously don't understand and there's no judgment on them Because why would they understand it ?

It's completely counterintuitive but all the so-called healthy foods and they are healthy if you don't have gut health issues when you have gut health issues , eating a ton of fiber is literally the worst thing you can do . So , yeah , so that just feeling out of control can create a lot of stress .

You know , as you know , like the stress in and of itself can create all sorts of problems .

He could tell me what it was , he could give me the pills for it , but he couldn't give me any more advice . Now you mentioned FODMAP . You were possibly recommended that diet . I would recommend nothing and had some deeper Detoxification issues I had to deal with first . How do we address that ?

Here , like here in the UK , we've got this system where the first point of contact is doctors who are not trained in nutrition . They don't learn about it in medical school . For me , I think there needs to be more people like you , more dieticians on the front line teaching people about nutrition . How do we go about addressing this ?

offense to doctors I've got multiple friends that are doctors

. They work in hospitals , some of them are GPs , etc . But they're not trained in that . And again , this isn't to pull doctors down or anything like that . This is just the reality of it . The average doctor I believe last time I checked They'll do five or six years of training at least , obviously before they then go into a specialty .

But in those six years of training , they get about 18 or 19 hours of nutrition . It's just not a lot there . Like you can't possibly learn everything you need to learn in 19 hours .

That's obviously just going to be a very brief overview of you know , okay , like these are the most common conditions you might have and these are what the guidelines say cool , let's move on . So that's an issue , so that's something that can be fixed . Like , why not ? That's a simple fix right . Like just trained doctors in nutrition .

So then when they come in to the workforce , they're not only thinking about the drugs , they're also thinking about well , you know , could probably change this or do this or do that . That would be a big , massive thing .

The other thing is and again , most people don't talk about this and I don't really know why , because to me it's just crazy so GP's work towards what they call coff targets and all of this is documented publicly . So they work towards coff targets and , again , the public don't really realize this .

But GP's are private businesses and they just work under the NHS brand . But they're basically like private businesses and obviously for the work they do , they need to get paid . And so the way the NHS decides , like , how do we pay these people ? Right , we just don't just give them like loads of money and hope that they work .

So they have these coff targets that they have to work towards . Now , obviously , every few years , the coff targets get adjusted based on the health conditions that are most prevalent , etc . When you look at the coff targets these GP's are working towards , they fundamentally get paid for two things .

It's either prescribing stuff or referring on to specialty services , and very often they'll do both , which is fine .

But what that means is if I go into a GP surgery and let's say , like I was right , like I'm obese and I'm Prediabetic and I've got mental health issues and I've got gut health issues and all of this stuff , if that GP sits with me for three hours , coaches me on all this lifestyle change stuff , tells me go and follow this diet , get this book , do some

meditation and let's see , spends all of that time that could change my life , but he doesn't get paid or she doesn't get paid . So then are we surprised when doctors on average and because not all of them do that , a lot of them do break the mold . You got people like doctor unwen , etc .

That there's a lot of lifestyle coaching in his practice when he doesn't really need to , but he does do that . And there are lots more doctors lots of them are not even on social media that do do that kind of thing . But on average , what do GPs do ?

When you go with any condition , they'll refer on if they can't , if they don't know , or they'll prescribe some sort of medication , usually some combination of the two . They don't do all the other stuff because ultimately they don't really get paid for it and that's a really blunt way to say it and it sounds like a conspiracy theory .

However , that is the way it works . All the co-op targets and stuff , they're all published publicly . It's not a secret , it's not hidden .

Obviously , the word in isn't as blunt as I'm saying , but fundamentally it is it that , like that's the way it works , and I've run this by clinical directors up and down the country , lots of different GPs , and I've asked them Not being funny , but like from what I've read , it seems like this Is that the case ?

And all of them agree like yeah , it's a really perverse system in terms of how it's set up . That's , that's how it works , and so that's another massive thing that could be changed . Like if the NHS started paying GPs Based on patient outcomes , which currently isn't the case .

If you just stop and think about that for a second , gps in theory are in the business of helping patients achieve better outcomes In theory , but they're not paid for that . Now you might assume . Well , if the GP gives them medication and refers them on to a specialty service , that should improve their outcomes , and that , for me , is the problem .

Should , might do , might not ? The specialty service might not be able to figure out , are you there , and then they get discharged and then they're back to square one or they might get part of medication that might get rid of those symptoms that might create these other symptoms , which you know very often is is the case .

I see a lot of patients that come to me , even simple stuff . A lot of patients . They go to the GP with constipation and then the GP goes , oh , try some Mavi call and then try some more Mavi call and , long story short , by the time they get referred to me they're on like eight Mavi call a day .

This is very common , extremely common , and it speaks to the point that I'm trying to make you .

So by the time they get to me they're on six , seven , eight Mavi call a day and all I need to tell look at their diet and you know they're either not eating enough fiber or sometimes , if they do , have some underlying gut health issues , we need to go the reverse and take out all the fiber One of those two options and then we get them off .

The Mavi call . Like you know , pretty straightforward lifestyle nutrition type stuff . But you think how much of the laxatives are being prescribed for something so simple ? Now , if you scale that up to all the more complex conditions , as you can see , really , where the problem lies is just it sounds and it doesn't sound sad .

It is sad , it's and it needs changing . But unfortunately there's just too much money in only treating symptoms with medication . And don't get me wrong , I'm not saying this as somebody that is against medication . That's not what I'm saying . I take medication . I have Ventilin and Serotad that have to take every day , otherwise I can't breathe .

I'm forever grateful for those drugs and when I don't take them , trust me , I notice . So it's not like I'm against drugs at all . What I'm against is the over reliance or the over prescription of drugs , especially when simple lifestyle changes can get the same or better results .

Now , of course , we do have people in society that aren't able to make lifestyle changes for various reasons , you know , and that's what medications are there for .

What I'm trying to say in a long winded way is if doctors got trained in nutrition appropriately , they don't have to do a nutrition degree , but they could have , like , say , a whole year of nutrition . Do that . Set up some NHS QAF targets that are based around patient outcomes , because if you're not in the business of improving patient outcomes .

Like , what are you doing ? Like , really like and that's the way I think about my job Like , if I'm not improving my patients outcomes , like , what am I doing ? And I would be the first one to pull myself up if I didn't have any patients coming back to me saying do you know that thing that really worked ?

Or I'm off my diabetes medication , I'm off my pain medication or whatever it is which . Thankfully , I hear those stories every week . But if I didn't , I'd be the first one to question myself of like , yeah , I'm not doing a good job here because I'm not hearing these stories and I should be .

And I don't know how or why more doctors don't ask themselves the same questions , you know , like , if you see the same patients every year and every year they're just on increasing amounts of medications , that's not a good sign . That's not a good sign . Understand , you need to get paid , that's .

I'm not against anybody getting paid , but at least get paid for doing the right thing , you know . And that's not to say prescribing medication isn't the right thing .

In some cases it is the right thing , but you know you can't say you're doing the right thing if all you do is prescribe medication to mask the symptoms and you never really investigate the lifestyle stuff and I get a lot of gps .

Or doctors will listen to this and be like , yeah , but Mike , look , we're overworked with stretch , we don't have time , we've only got eight minutes to spend with a patient , etc . I get it like I'm the same .

The NHS expects you to work at 200 capacity with zero resources and they always want more out of you , like , understand this , it's the same for all of us across the board . But all I'm trying to say is if they got trained in nutrition a bit more so they understood even the constipation example that , oh , patients constipated . Have you tried eating more fiber ?

No , okay , cool , go and try that first , come back and if you're still stuck , we can consider what to do next . And if they got paid for giving that advice as a cof target , then it would sit well with them to be like oh , yeah , I did that . They got better outcomes and I got paid .

And don't get me wrong , I know doctors don't think about well , how do I get paid ? How do I get paid the most ? I'll just prescribe these drugs . That's not how they think . All the doctors I personally know and work alongside .

They all want to help people , but we're all sitting inside of this perverse system that is kind of weirdly set up to incentivize prescribing and referring on to specialty services . You know in much the same way why . Why is bariatric surgery so popular within the NHS ?

Because it's seen as a quick win , and you know , of course , you get paid quite a lot of money . I think it costs like 50 grand to do bariatric surgery and , again , they don't think about it as a money making thing . But we do live in a capitalist society , so everything revolves around money . Sadly , whether you like it or not .

And to say in , the system is set up in a perverse way to incentivize profit over patient outcomes , and I think , personally , it should be the other way around . It has to be financially economical and sustainable , etc . Cool for me , though . All I'm here . I just want to see people do well , that's that's . That's really all I care about .

I let somebody else deal with the finances and and all of that stuff , and you know that ties into one of the questions you asked earlier in terms of like , what keeps you going , you know in the day , and it is that it is here and those patient outcomes you know , coming back to me telling me that it's worked or they're off medications at this point in the

conversation , mike and I started talking about how much pressure the NHS is under and how society is just so chronically sick these days .

It's just to any logical , rational human being , it's just an indicator , like what you're saying , of like , okay , something is really wrong here and this is .

This is really where I start to feel disenfranchised with maybe the government and the NHS , and I just start to wonder , like I don't know , I just have a real battle every day with whether or not I want to be part of this or not , because I love helping people and I love hearing the successes .

But then , on the other hand , I'm like why is the system so reluctant to just do the right things ? I don't get that and there probably are lots of conspiracies about that , I don't know . But like , because to me there are things that we know .

At the moment there's a massive debate around ultra process foods . You know , the majority , I would say , of scientists and healthcare professionals agree that the data is pretty strong . Ultra process foods aren't great for us .

Definitely , since the 1950s to now the increase in consumption of ultra process foods has just gone through the roof to the point where , at the moment , the average adult in the UK gets 60 to 70 percent of their calories from ultra process foods .

Of course , the children probably get an even higher percentage because they're not going to eat the broccoli and all that kind of stuff . And then , alongside that increase in consumption , we've had the increase in all of the lifestyle diseases , etc . Etc . So to me that's an easy win in terms of ultra process food consumption .

We need to like go back to the 50s and 60s , where the ultra process food was an occasional thing , and , going back to the point he was making earlier about , like , we're not telling people to be perfect .

So ultra process food is sadly going to be part of our future , but let's make it an occasional thing , like it was in the 50s and 60s , whereas these days it's it's the majority of what you're eating .

If you take a hundred calories of ultra process food and a hundred calories of , like , minimally processed food but it's still a hundred calories and you consume it your body will absorb more of the hundred calories from the ultra process food than it will from the minimally processed food .

So , even just on that level like you're absorbing more calories from the ultra process food , irrespective of eating the same calories . So that would lead to a logical conclusion of well , if I'm doing that all across the day , two to three thousand calories every single day , every single day of my life , is that going to lead to weight gain ?

If I'm absorbing more calories , I would expect that to be the case . If you're a olympic athlete , you might get away with it for a bit . As soon as you stop doing that stuff , you're obviously not going to get away with it . So that's one of them . Another one is all of the additives that go into ultra process food .

So if you look at titanium dioxide , for example . So titanium dioxide is a known carcinogen . It's known to disrupt glucose and lipid metabolism in the body and that can obviously lead to all sorts of downstream effects , and that's very well documented in the research . And it's that well documented that in 2022 , the eu decided to ban it .

And they said , right , food industry can no longer use this as a food additive . And where it's used if anybody's wondering is so when ? If you have , say , skimmed milk , so they take all of the fat out , and what happens when they take all of the fat out ? The white milk goes gray . So how they get it to be white is they put titanium dioxide in .

Now , oddly enough , titanium dioxide is the same chemical that makes white peat white . It's the same , it's exactly the same . Pin , yes , the put it in paint to make the paint white , otherwise the paint wouldn't be white , but that's what gives it the white color .

However , in food manufacturing , because of the scale of it , when they put the hammer on it in 2022 , that does not mean now , in 2023 , that is not in the food system , it's still in the food system , you see , on food labels still . So , for lots of complex reasons , because the food industry is so large and it takes a while to change things .

I don't know what the grace period was , but I imagine they would have given them a grace period of like like five years or maybe even ten years .

You've got to get this out of the food system , but it's officially banned , so they can't put it in any new food , but it's still in the system , to the point where , when I first read about this and same reaction as you I was like , seriously , what the fudge is going on here ? And then immediately , you know , I start checking all of my food labels .

You know like it's in the toothpaste , it's in the milk , it's , it's , it's everywhere . And that's just one example . Now , bearing in mind , there are thousands of food additives that are used to preserve the life , extend the life of the food , keep it fresh , keep it from going bad , give it certain colors , taste , flavors , etc . Thousands of them .

Most of them we don't even know what's going on Now . It's baffling to me , though , why they're allowed to put these things in the food before they have to prove that it's safe . But when you go down those sorts of rabbit holes , on the one side it's really kind of depressing , really , that this kind of stuff is allowed to happen .

But then on the other side , you would think , well , if the system is really here to help us , right to be here for our benefit , then there's some massive changes that can be made and , again , some of the pushback on this kind of stuff as well . You can't take donuts away from people .

You can't take their favorite foods away from them , whereas for me , I'm just of the opinion of like yeah , I think you can , though you know people in the 50s weren't you know what I mean like their lives were fine , like they weren't walking around saying if only I had donuts and fries at McDonald's , then my life would be complete . Nobody was saying that .

So I think we'll be okay , like less ultra process food , less chemicals , less additives that we know , has all these bad effects . And as time goes on , we you know we'll find out even more mechanisms Like , for example , we know that the gut brain access is a thing , right ? Nobody's really too sure .

Do mental health conditions happen first and then the gut follows , or do gut issues happen first and then the brain follows ? Nobody's really too sure . But what we do know is people that have mental health conditions tend to have gut health issues and vice versa .

So at the moment , what we do know is it is plausible that the ultra process food is messing our gut microbiome up at least , and once that becomes messed up , then you're at an increased risk of mental health conditions . So again , for me , there's enough data there to be like let's just change this whole thing up .

One of the big things that I'm just confused about is why doesn't the government just say okay , this is what we know , we're here to protect you . So all of these junk foods , ultra process foods , whatever you want to call them that have all this nonsense in them titanium , dark said and all the other stuff , we're just going to make it really expensive .

Like we can still have it , but it's just ridiculously expensive now . And on the flip side of that , all the taxes that we get from that . We're going to use that to subsidize minimally processed fresh foods . So even if you're on benefits and you've barely got any money , you can still go and buy some meat , some eggs , some cheese .

You can feed your family , have all the calories and nutrients that you need to stay healthy , but for like barely any cost .

That would transform the health of the public massively , massively , because all of a sudden then , instead of having 60% of your calories from ultra process crap , now you're going to have 60% of your calories from nutrient dense , minimally processed foods . Everybody will weigh less , everybody will feel better Mate .

One key question I think I'd like to finish on is obviously you had IBS at one point and you're now in your role where people get transferred over to you when they've not been getting anywhere with their doctors . What are some of the key pieces of advice you give to people who've been struggling with IBS ?

Are there some regular things that you say to a lot of people to really turn things around quickly ?

So if somebody has diagnosed IBS and the first thing to tell people is that IBS is a diagnosis by exclusion , there is no test for IBS , there's no blood tests , there's no , nothing . They will search for everything else . They'll put a camera , like you'll have an endoscopy or colonoscopy . So you have a camera done .

You throw a camera at the bomb to look for any physical abnormalities . You know they'll do a bunch of blood tests to rule out literally everything else . And if you still have the symptoms but they can't find anything obvious , that's when you get the label of IBS .

And that's useful for people to know because if you go through all of those tests and obviously endoscopy , colonoscopy is super invasive you will have had some at some point Several times . Yeah , it's not fun , is it ? So it can be really heartbreaking when you go through all of that and the doctor's like yeah , I don't know .

It can be really confusing and heartbreaking , but it's just useful for people to know . Right , that's how they arrive at this IBS label . So really , ibs is just a label for a group of symptoms . What we know from the research is up to 80% of people with IBS have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth , which is just the gut microbiome is out of balance .

You've got too many gas forming bacteria and that's really it . So then the question is well , what foods do the gas forming bacteria eat ? Because it's all the excess buildup of gas that create all of the symptoms , right , like the acid reflux , the bloating , the distention , the constipation , the diarrhea , everything , even the pain .

When you get excess intestinal fermentation in the large or even in the small intestines , your intestines release lots of histamine and that creates that pain sensation . So all of that comes from the gas formation . So what foods do those microbes eat to create all of that gas ? The most fermentable foods in our diet are fiber and starch .

And yeah , you do have FODMAPs those are just very specific types of sugars in lots of different foods like fruits , vegetables etc . Interestingly , in my clinic experience over the last 8 , 9 , 10 years , I've never had to progress a patient onto a FODMAP diet ever .

I'm FODMAP trained , I've done the FODMAP training , but I've never had to send the patient for and I send them to take them through the FODMAP diet . So what I do first is if they've definitely got IBS and I come to that conclusion over . If they've had all of those tests and they've got all the classic symptoms , we go okay , cool , let's treat this as IBS .

So , if that's the case , remove all of the fiber out of your diet is the first one and that's the easiest one . So , for example , if a patient is eating lots of whole grain bread and they're eating oats and they're eating all these things that are otherwise very good foods to eat , nothing wrong with them .

Just get them to switch to the low fiber versions white bread , etc . This is the point where people go . But , mike , you're a dietitian , you shouldn't be telling people to eat white bread . But in the context of what we're trying to achieve , it makes perfect sense . We're just lowering the total fiber intake and for a lot of people that's all they need to do .

If the symptoms are quite mild , for a lot of people that is literally all they need to do . So that's the first thing . Look at your fiber intake , reduce it . If you do become constipated , golden linseeds will fix that 100% of the time . Never fails to work . It can take one or two tablespoons a day . Lots of water .

There's a phytochemical in golden linseeds that acts as a very , very mild laxative . It's so mild it literally takes two or three days to start working , but that alleviates any constipation whatsoever . I've even had kids take golden linseeds and they've come off all of them , all of the more we call that they've been on and completely normalised their bowel movements .

Not everybody gets constipated when they go low-fiber or no-fiber , but some do . If that happens , then golden linseeds are the one . So for the people though that don't have 100% remission of symptoms on low-fiber , maybe they get 30% better , but they've still got occasional reflux or bloating or whatever the case is .

That's then when we go into the second stage of looking at the starches . There are two ways to approach this . We can reduce the total amount of starches you're eating , which is very effective , or we can modify the types of starches you're eating .

So if we take , for example , a grain of basmati rice or a grain of just long grain rice even if it's white rice and a grain of taijasmine rice , they're both white rice On paper , they're both labelled as white rice . They're both labelled as starches .

However , if you look under the both grains of rice under a microscope , you'd see the molecular structure of the starches is different , so much so that it's absorbed in different parts of the body .

So the white rice even if it is white , it's got no fibre will make its way all the way down into the large intestine , which is where most of those microbes live . And then what do we get ? Loads of gas formation . So the microbes are having a party , they're loving life , but you get all the symptoms and you're hating life .

Whereas the Tijasmine rice , even though it's a white rice , it's absorbed mostly in the small intestine . Now , in small intestinal bacterial overgrowth . You do have some bacteria in the small intestine , but it's a lot , lot , lot less than what's in the large intestine .

So we bypass the majority of the symptoms just by modifying the types of carbohydrates that we're eating , and the same is true for different kinds of breads and all sorts of different things . Some people are just happy to go do you know what ? For the first two meals of my day I'm just not going to have any starchy things .

I'll save those for the evening and for some people that keeps them in good check , and they're happy to do that .

Other people just are not willing to give up the breakfast cereals and the sandwiches and all of that stuff , and that's then where we go into the modifying the starches just to get them the outcomes that they want really , which is obviously their symptoms gone .

And if you do those two things , like I said , I've never needed to progress anybody onto a FODMAP diet , which don't get me wrong . It works in about 50 to 60% of people and it achieves , interestingly enough , the same outcomes of what I've just described , which is reducing intestinal fermentation . It achieves exactly the same thing .

However , it does it in a very micromanaging type of way . So , for example , you can eat bananas when they're right but not when they're not right , but you can eat certain tomatoes , not other ones , and the list goes on . So it does work .

It's a bit of a micromanaging approach , which is why a lot of people kind of struggle to stick with it , because it just makes life complicated .

And it's exactly that reason why , when I first got diagnosed with IBS , obviously I knew what FODMAP was and even as a dietitian I was like , screw that , I'm off to find something simpler , just because I knew I would not stick to it and that's all of the other stuff that I've mentioned . That's what I figured out over the years , not my ideas .

It's all published research up doctors around the world using it . It's just not very well known . But yeah , like those low-fibre either go low carb or modify the starches . There are books on this topic .

Like I said , it's not like I've invented it , but when I get a patient with IBS or any digestive health issue , when I just take them through that process nine times out of 10 , things get either 100% better or very close to it .

Every single time I've had five six-year-old kids . They've come into my clinical practice . They're on 10-movie holiday . This one specific case comes to mind . This kid was on 10-movie holiday . The doctor was sending him for all sorts of investigations . They thought you might have had some sort of like neurological dysfunction of his bowel .

And when he first landed in my office I was like this is way above my pay grade , like neurological dysph . I don't even know what to do here . At the time I remember saying to the mum I was like look , this is a bit of a punt , but based on the symptoms you report in , I think let's just try this .

And I remember saying to her like I'm not sure about this , like nothing bad was gonna happen , of course , but I just wasn't sure if it was gonna work for him , like would it just continue to be bad or would things improve ? I wasn't sure . And we got him on the golden linseeds .

Literally within three weeks he was off all of his morbid call bowel movements , completely normalized and yeah , that was really good . So of course I write to doctors to tell them what we've done , if it worked or not , et cetera .

And those are my favorite letters to write to doctors just to be like , yeah , you know , like he presented with this , we did this and yeah , that story always sticks in my head .

Thanks for tuning in to the episode , guys . If you know of anyone who struggles with IBS or deals with things like really uncomfortable constipation and it's driving them insane , then please share this episode with them , even if they don't usually listen to podcasts on Apple Podcasts or things like Spotify .

This content is also shared on the ForgutSake website , which is wwwforgutsakeorg , and also on there is blog posts and other interviews I've done with people in the past . So thanks for listening and have a great day .