Heal Your Gut: A Doctor’s 4-Part Protocol to Stop Bloating, Boost Energy, & Feel Better Now

The Mel Robbins Podcast

In this episode of The Mel Robbins Podcast, Dr. Rajshree Nambudrapad shares her four-part protocol for healing gut health issues such as bloating, IBS, SIBO, constipation,

Key takeaways

• The gut is deeply connected to every aspect of health including mood, energy, immunity, and skin condition through the gut-brain and gut-skin axes.
• Symptoms like bloating or food intolerance are often due to underlying gut dysfunction rather than specific foods alone.

Main topics

• Gut-brain axis
• Gut-skin axis
• SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth)

Notable quotes

If you truly want to be healthy, you absolutely have to pay attention to your gut.

Conclusion

Dr. Rajshree Nambudrapad's four-part protocol offers a science-backed, personalized roadmap for healing gut issues

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. Speaker 1 (0:08) Today, you have an appointment with one of the most trusted gut health doctors in the world, Dr. Rajshree Nambudrapad. Dr. Rajshree is here to give you her comprehensive guide to what truly causes gut health issues and her protocol for healing them for good. She's going to begin by explaining that there are four things you must understand about your gut in order to heal it. She will teach you that your gut is connected to your brain, your immune system, your metabolism, your mood, your skin, your energy, basically every single part of your body. So whether you deal with IBS or bloating or cramping or burping or acid reflux or you're tired of feeling backed up for days or you just have symptoms you can't figure out, you are going to love this episode. And she's not just going to teach you from her experience as a medical doctor. She's also going to teach you from her personal experience because she herself has struggled with debilitating gut issues and that experience fundamentally changed the way she understands the gut, the way she treats her patients, and it shapes the protocol and the recommendations she is going to share with you today. It's so easy to feel powerless, but today Dr. Roshri is here to show you how to understand gut health and heal your gut once and for all. Speaker 1 (1:41) Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I'm really excited that you're here because I think you're going to find this conversation today to be such an extraordinary resource. And it's always an honor to be together and to spend this time with you. And if you're a new listener or somebody shared this with you, I just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. Today, you're going to learn all about your gut, how to heal it, and you're also going to get... a doctor's guide to relieving bloating, IBS, constipation, and so much more. Our guest today is Dr. Rajshree Nambudrapad. She's a board-certified physician who has built an audience of millions online because she makes gut health issues so easy to understand. Dr. Rajshree is board certified in internal medicine and integrative holistic medicine, and she has built a global audience of 3 million plus subscribers on YouTube because of her simple videos where she explains the root causes, symptoms, and treatment for conditions like bloating, IBS, acid reflux, insulin resistance, skin conditions, and so much more. Dr. Rajshree is the founder and medical director of OC Integrative Medicine and a member of the medical staff in the Department of Internal Medicine at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, California. She graduated at the top of her class from Northeastern Ohio Medical University and completed her internal medicine residency at Northwestern University. She trained in gastroenterology at UC Irvine and the Institute of Functional Medicine and in endocrinology at the Mayo Clinic. Please help me welcome Dr. Rajshree to the Mel Robbins Podcast. Speaker 2 (3:23) Thank you, Mel. It's wonderful Speaker 1 (3:24) to be here. And since we all have had the experience of... feeling bloated or being uncomfortable, or we know somebody that has a lot of GI issues, I would love to have you start, Dr. Rajshree, by speaking to the person who's with us. What could change about their life, their health, how they feel, if they really take to heart everything that you're about to teach us? Speaker 2 (3:50) Well, today I'm going to help you better understand what is actually happening in your gut. So if you're someone out there who's struggling with bloating every day, or chronic constipation, or inconsistent bowels, or maybe you have reflux or food sensitivities, and you don't even know what to eat anymore. I want you to know that there's hope, and there's so much we can do to heal your gut. And today I'm going to share a lot of practical tips that you can actually begin using right away to start feeling better. And by healing your gut and improving your digestion, you're going to notice so many other aspects of your health improve. From your energy to your mental focus, your mood, your skin, your immune system, your metabolism, and so much more. Speaker 1 (4:35) One of the reasons why I want to talk to you is because you have such an extraordinary background and you're in a clinical practice, but your approach is grounded in science and deeply personal. Could you just explain a little bit more in depth about your training and your background and how you approach your gut health medical practice? So Speaker 2 (5:00) I did my internal medicine training at Northwestern in Chicago. And then I did gastroenterology training at UC Irvine. And so during that GI training, I did endoscopies and colonoscopies. I did all the traditional treatments. Like reflux was treated with proton pump inhibitors to just shut off the acid. And if someone had constipation, they were given prescription laxatives. So intuitively, I just knew that there was so much more we could do for the gut. I really wanted to help patients heal, not just suppress the symptoms. And then I had my own personal journey with SIBO, and I think that really transformed the way I saw so many things in the gut. And then a lot Speaker 1 (5:42) of Speaker 2 (5:42) things I've actually learned from my patients. Speaker 1 (5:44) Why are you smiling so much? What have you discovered in 15 years of practice of not just treating symptoms? but restoring the overall gut health and how a simple protocol that we're going to learn today really is the place to start for absolutely every single thing that you may be experiencing right now related to gut issues. So Speaker 2 (6:07) many people, I think, maybe are stuck and they're just living with these symptoms every single day. And they may have nowhere to turn to. And they may feel like, is this how my life is going to be for the rest of my life? I know because I was there and how scary that was. So when I finally figured it out for myself, I thought, I have to share this with others. There's so many people suffering. I have to make this standardized. And I need to create a protocol, a roadmap for people. Because if it was that difficult for me to figure out, imagine other people that don't have GI training. Speaker 1 (6:40) Dr. Ashri. Tell me about what happened that makes this deeply personal for you. Speaker 2 (6:47) So about seven or eight years ago, I started to notice that at the end of the day, I had so much pain in my abdomen. It was miserable pain, super sharp. And it was so much pressure in my abdomen. I even felt like it was hard to take deep breaths. And that pressure would make me feel anxious. It would make me feel agitated. It's hard to focus on other things. So I was really trying to figure out what was causing it. So I initially thought maybe it's the sensitivity to gluten and dairy. So I cut those out. But then all of a sudden, I couldn't eat quinoa anymore. I couldn't eat brown rice. Those would make me bloated too. And then all of a sudden, I couldn't eat cheese anymore. I hadn't eaten cheese my whole life. Now I couldn't eat that. I couldn't have butter. So my diet became very restricted in order to control the symptoms. I literally was down to like eggs, salmon, white rice, arugula salad, and chicken soup. So I couldn't even go out to restaurants. I was afraid when I got an invitation to someone's house, I would always eat before going out. The turning point for me was when I realized I couldn't eat fruit anymore. Because fruit is what I consider healthy. And I had always enjoyed eating bananas, but now even a banana was causing bloating. So that's when I realized that the problem wasn't the food. The problem was my gut. Speaker 1 (8:19) So why is gut health so important, Dr. Roshri, for your overall health? Speaker 2 (8:25) The gut is really the foundation of your health. So if you truly want to be healthy, you absolutely have to pay attention to your gut. So your gut is... sending signals to every organ in your body. So for example, let's start with your brain. Your gut is constantly talking to the brain through the gut-brain axis. So often when I'll see patients who have gut issues, they're also suffering from anxiety and brain fog, and often sometimes even insomnia. And then our gut strongly influences our immune system. So 70 % of our immune cells are in the lining of our gut. So if your gut is inflamed, you might notice that inflammation pop up elsewhere in your body. And then our gut strongly influences our skin through the gut-skin axis. Wait, Speaker 1 (9:11) the gut-skin axis? What is that? Speaker 2 (9:13) So our skin microbiome strongly reflects our gut microbiome. Really? Yeah. So what's fascinating is when I help patients heal their gut, they'll often come back and tell me, well, by the way, my acne cleared up. My eczema cleared up. And I treat some very complex cases of psoriasis, which is an autoimmune skin condition, simply by healing the gut. We see the skin improve dramatically. You're Speaker 1 (9:38) kidding. Yeah. Dr. Rajshree, you talk about this concept of the gut garden. What is that? Speaker 2 (9:45) So basically, what I want to make clear and share with the audience today is that our gut is not a simple tube where food goes in one end and waste comes out the other end. Speaker 1 (9:56) Okay. Speaker 2 (9:56) A lot of time we're given that impression. Yes. You know, because you might have had an endoscopy or a colonoscopy. And during those procedures, the gut kind of looks like a tube from the inside, you know, with twists and turns. But so many of my patients have had those procedures and they're just told that everything looks normal. But they don't feel normal and they have a lot of symptoms that are affecting their quality of life. So what I want to share today is that the gut. is actually a complex and delicate ecosystem. And the best way that I like to explain it is that it's a garden. So let me show you more about that. Speaker 1 (10:32) Oh, I'd love to see this. If you're listening right now, what we have is just a visual prop. We're going to talk all about this. And it is... just kind of a garden that we've put together. You see soil, you see a watering can, you see bees, and you've got all these beautiful flowers and greens that are growing in the garden. Speaker 2 (10:51) And Speaker 1 (10:52) one of the things I just want to say, Dr. Rajshree, is I am one of those people that have always envisioned a long tube when somebody says the gut. Why do you want us to envision a gut garden? Speaker 2 (11:05) So what I've observed from 15 years of clinical practice and treating very complex gut disorders is that sometimes you can't explain these conditions if you just look at the structural aspects of our gut. Speaker 1 (11:18) Okay. So Speaker 2 (11:19) what I've discovered is that there's actually four main systems of our gut garden. And to really have ideal digestion and to feel your best, you have to correct all four aspects of this garden. Speaker 1 (11:31) Okay. Speaker 2 (11:32) And when we do that, remarkable things happen. Patients who have had symptoms for years, sometimes even decades, they get better. Wow. Yes. So let me tell you what these four systems are. Great. The first system is the motility in the gut. Speaker 1 (11:48) The who? The motility. Speaker 2 (11:49) Motility. Okay. That's like the irrigation system of your garden. Speaker 1 (11:53) Okay. Speaker 2 (11:53) So... We have to have good motility in your gut. Everything's got to be moving through your gut nicely. If anything gets slowed down or backed up, that's a problem. Speaker 1 (12:03) What's the second of the four things in the gut garden? Speaker 2 (12:06) So the second is the pollinators of your garden. So like the bees and the butterflies. So we have one little bee here. So similarly in our gut, we have to have digestive enzymes. We have to have stomach acid and we have to have bile to break down our food. Okay. So many patients I see, they're lacking in one of those areas. They don't have enough stomach acid, or they don't have enough pancreatic enzymes, or they have their gallbladder removed. So they don't have bile that's stored up. And so when they eat food, they just can't break it down. So that would be the second system of the garden. Speaker 1 (12:43) Okay, pollinators. Yes. What's the third? Speaker 2 (12:46) Okay, the third system is the garden bed. So that's like the soil in your garden. Speaker 1 (12:51) And Speaker 2 (12:51) that's similar to the integrity of the gut lining. Speaker 1 (12:55) Okay. Speaker 2 (12:56) So it's so critical because if you have inflammation in your gut lining, that's very close to your immune system. So 70 % of your immune cells are sitting there right under the gut lining. So that's like having big cracks in your soil. It's kind of like having leaky gut, which we'll talk about today. So that's the critical third system of the gut. Speaker 1 (13:18) Gotcha. And what's the final one? Speaker 2 (13:19) The final one is your microbiome. So the plants and weeds in your garden. Speaker 1 (13:24) Flowers Speaker 2 (13:25) are like the good bacteria in your gut. And then these weeds that have popped up here, these are like the bad bacteria, maybe even fungal organisms in yeast. So in order to have a healthy gut, you need to have a balance. You need to have a robust and diverse types of plants so that these weeds don't pop up. And when we see weeds growing in your gut garden, we call that dysbiosis. Speaker 1 (13:50) Dysbiosis? Uh-huh. Okay. Speaker 2 (13:52) Dysbiosis means bacterial imbalance. Speaker 1 (13:54) Oh, okay. So if you're having gut issues, do you have to know which one of these four things is out of whack? Well, the beautiful thing is if you're Speaker 2 (14:07) not sure what to do, you Speaker 1 (14:08) can Speaker 2 (14:09) just start with step one and step two, which I'm happy to explain today. Speaker 1 (14:12) Okay. And Speaker 2 (14:13) for more than 50 % of people, that's going to help them tremendously. And that's the motility and the pollinators. Those first two. So what I do with my patients when I see them, most of the time, I have them work on... That irrigation system, the motility, and the pollinators breaking down their food, starting at that initial consult, even while we're waiting for testing to come back. Speaker 1 (14:38) So if you have any gut issue and I were to come to your office, Dr. Rajshree, you would tell me, start doing these two things immediately because these two things, no matter what you're dealing with, are going to help your overall gut health? Absolutely. Speaker 2 (14:51) What are they? Okay, so to promote motility, Usually, we want to make sure your bowels are 100 % and complete every day. Speaker 1 (14:59) What does that mean? Speaker 2 (15:00) So, so many of us, we have some form of constipation. So we got to get the bowels emptying perfectly. So I'll put patients on magnesium at bedtime. Speaker 1 (15:11) Which kind? Because there's so many different kinds of magnesium. Speaker 2 (15:13) Absolutely. Magnesium citrate, glycinate, and malate. Okay. The citrate part is really the one that works as a natural osmotic laxative. What that means is it pulls water into your colon. So you take it at bedtime and you can adjust the dose based on your bowels. But that way, when you wake up, your bowels are like clockwork. So that's the first thing. But we also use something called a prokinetic. A Speaker 1 (15:40) who? A prokinetic? Yes. Okay. Speaker 2 (15:42) A prokinetic is not a laxative, but it's something that activates those cleaning waves in the gut. Speaker 1 (15:48) Really? Give me an example of what a prokinetic would Speaker 2 (15:51) be. Speaker 1 (15:51) So a Speaker 2 (15:52) natural prokinetic is ginger. Oh. Ginger. So we use a supplement, but it's essentially a patented formula of ginger and artichoke. And you take that along with the magnesium at bedtime. And what it's going to do is it's going to clean up your small intestine while you're sleeping. And you take that consistently. And that's going to help that first system of the gut garden, that motility, that irrigation system. And that's huge. Speaker 1 (16:17) Okay. So that's number one. Speaker 2 (16:19) The Speaker 1 (16:19) second step that you give to people that come to see you, no matter what their complaints may be, is what? Speaker 2 (16:25) The second thing is I enhance their pollinators. Okay. So I give them digestive enzyme support. And what does that mean? So I have them take high-potency digestive enzymes. either before or after their meals, and they can try it both ways and see what works for them. But what that does is it helps break down the food better. So it breaks down proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. So guess what? You don't get bloated. You might be able to eat foods that normally would upset you. Like, I have some patients who can't eat Brussels sprouts, but if they take their digestive enzymes, they can because it breaks down the food better. Is there an example of, like, a food? That acts as a digestive enzyme? Absolutely. So if you don't