Optimize Your Gut! Tame Menopause!
- Doc Mac
- Jun 10
- 7 min read
THE PAUSE
DOC MAC'S GUT PROTOCOL
“Doc, you keep writing about our guts and microbiomes being crucial for thyroid optimization. Now that we are optimizing our thyroids, is it time to also optimize our guts?
Since day one of the HOPE Protocol, you’ve been working on decreasing inflammation, and nothing works better at optimizing your gut than reducing inflammation with The Meso Menu, the most anti-inflammatory menu on the planet.
I recall when I was a preteen and my friends and I discovered a lengthy underground culvert pipe tunnel. I remember we were all looking into it, and there was nothing but darkness. One of my friends had this great idea of crawling through the tunnel, I promise it wasn’t me.
Without hesitation, the shorter, blond-haired, blue-eyed friend just went for it. Then, quickly, my other two friends went into the darkness. I stood there for a minute, feeling the peer pressure and thinking about what could be inside this mysterious black hole.
There could be raccoons, and they are really mean. There could be poop from who knows what. There could be all kinds of bugs and insects, including black widows. Rattlesnakes love living in darkness! There could be viruses that could kill me. Oh, and what about fungus, don’t they make zombies?
I started crawling and was glad I went last because that meant my friends were flushing their bodies through the cobwebs, snake nests, and other unfriendlies.
When I exited the other side, my friends were dusting themselves off, as if they had ants all over their bodies. I dusted myself off gently, since they had cleaned the culvert for me.
That’s what the Gut protocol is all about. Cleaning your gut so it runs as smoothly as water passing through a culvert pipe after a whopping rainstorm.
GUT 101
You and I are nothing more than tubes. We have 20 to 28-foot-long tubes that run from our mouth to our anus. This tube is what we refer to as our gastrointestinal tract, also known as our gut.
Living within this tube are around 38 trillion microbes. I promise there are no raccoons, black widows, or snakes, but there are a lot of bugs. We have as many microbes living in our gut as we have cells in our body.
"If we placed just our gut microbiome into a sack, it would weigh about five pounds.”
FYI: The human body is estimated to contain between 20 and 40 trillion cells, with the average adult male having around 36 trillion and the average adult female having around 28 trillion.
Most of our body cells are blood cells. If you remove blood cells from our cell count, ninety percent of the remaining cells are microbes. This gives you an idea of their significance.
When you add all the microbes together, they form what is called our microbiome. Microbes encompass a diverse range of organisms, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, archaea, protozoa, and single-celled eukaryotes.
So as I crawled through the culvert, the one thing I was right about was the bugs.
As I crawled, it was so dark I couldn’t see anything. Could you do me a favor and close your eyes for a count of three and then open them to see something special?
Did you see that?
“What?”
Millions of microbes just marched across your eyeballs. I said millions!
They are everywhere, and it's our job to take care of them, and their job is to optimize our bodies.
The gut houses the most microbes. Scientists have identified over 1,000 different species of bacteria in the gut; each person's gut typically contains around 160 of these species, and no two people have the same mixture of gut bacteria.
FYI: Studies have shown that the Yanomami who live in the Amazon forest for thousands of years with minimal outside intervention possess almost double the microbial diversity of Americans.
“Is more better? “
A more diverse gut microbiome is associated with a healthier digestive system and overall better health. However, there is general agreement that most people who live in a First World country have an abundance of three types of bacteria: Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria.
Without this five-pound sack of microbes, we would not be able to survive. Microbes help digest our food, regulate our immune system, protect against other bacteria that cause disease, and produce B vitamins, as well as Vitamin K.
In today's introductory chapter, the first piece of information I want you to take home with you is:
“Most of our body’s contact with the outside world is through our gut.”
As I crawled through that dark tunnel, everything that was in that tunnel came from the outside world. The surrounding life could not penetrate the metal walls. If anyone or anything wanted to enter the tunnel, they would have to do so from its entrances and exits.
THE EPITHELIUM
The gut has an inner lining that determines what can pass from the outside world into our bodies. It is called the epithelium. The inner lining of our gut's lumen is only one cell thick, yet nearly as impenetrable as a metal tunnel.
It is almost unimaginable that a one-cell-thick layer of cells is the only barrier between the outside world and the rest of our body.
The world, like the food it provides us, enters the mouth and travels through the gut tube. The microbiota breaks down the outside world, and the body takes from the mash what it needs, while letting the remainder be eliminated. You can see how vital these critters are. Without them, we would not be able to be nourished.
"This one-cell-thick epithelial lining serves as the gatekeeper, allowing necessary nourishment to pass through it and into the body."
The outside world is harsh, and as time passes, it can damage our epithelial lining.
To protect us, God wrapped another layer of protection around the epithelium, just in case the epithelium fails. It is called the lamina propria. It is a loose layer of connective tissue that contains immune cells, blood vessels, and lymphatics.
“The lamina propria houses approximately 70% of our immune system.”
She’s pretty smart!
Now that you are at that age, you have most likely had a colonoscopy.
I recall, through the twilight anesthesia, seeing the inside of my colon, and it looked like empty space. Within that space, called the lumen, the microbiota reside.
Most of these microbes have a symbiotic relationship with humans, meaning we benefit from them, and they benefit from us in return. The microbiota provide essential services, such as:
Protecting us against microorganisms that can cause disease.
Training our immune cells on how to protect us
Digesting our food into nutrients that sustain life.
I mentioned the three most abundant bacteria within our gut earlier, but I would also like to highlight another microbe. They are called Archaea.
Archaea are evolutionarily distinct from bacteria because they lack a defined nucleus or organelles. They also thrive in high-pressure, salty, and extreme-temperature environments where other bacteria could not.
Archaea may be the oldest living thing on the planet. Archaeologists found archaea that they believe are over four billion years old.
Why do I bring Archea up? These microbes play a critical role in our metabolism and hormone regulation.
Yes! I said Hormones and Metabolism. Two fundamental aspects to help you and me feel and look great as we age.
The archaea and other microbes affect our hormones in several ways, including:
Hormone production: These microbes produce and secrete hormones.
Hormone response: These microbes carry out the orders our hormones send them.
Hormone regulation: These microbes help regulate leptin, ghrelin, and insulin.
Hormone degradation: These microbes can also break down our hormones.
The healthier your microbiome, the better your:
Metabolism
Immunity
Behavior
Fertility (Thinking of our younger folk)
Menopause (It’s all about the hormones)
Since I brought up menopause.
THE MICROBIOME AND MENOPAUSE
Since most, if not all, of my readers are in menopause, let's begin by exploring the connection between menopause and our microbiomes.
Before I delve into menopause and the microbiome, I want you to understand that menopause is an understudied topic, and research on the gut microbiome is still in its infancy. Although studies are limited, they already demonstrate the close connection between menopause, hormones, and microbiomes.
We all pass through life stages. At each stage, science has shown that our microbiome changes. For example, the microbiome undergoes significant changes when we transition from a milk-based diet to a diet based on meat and plants.
Later, as girls become adolescents, not boys, for some reason, there is another significant change in our microbiome. Girls’ microbiomes become more adult-like earlier than those of boys. Didn't we know that females are more mature earlier than males? I know males who have never matured.
Scientists believe the infusion of female hormones causes the adolescent change in women’s microbiomes. They believe the significant difference between female and male microbiomes is mainly due to the presence of female sex hormones.
Once ovulation ceases, and that is how I define menopause, your ovaries' production of your sex hormones ceases, which means your ovaries’ production of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone decreases dramatically.
Since science has found that ovarian hormones supervise our gut bacteria, we can see that when a woman’s ovaries stop producing these hormones, another significant change occurs to our microbiomes.
Here is a third piece of information you should take note of.
“Menopause causes your microbiome to go unsupervised.”
In our following blog, I will explain the first step I have my clients take to optimize their microbiome.
🐛 Doc
Another Menopausal Transformation
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IT'S ALL ABOUT THE HORMONES!
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Disclaimer:
The information provided in this newsletter is for educational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Always consult with your healthcare provider before starting any new supplement, including zinc, especially if you have a medical condition, are pregnant, or are taking medications. Individual needs may vary; this content does not replace the advice of a professional medical expert.
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