On Health with Houston Methodist
On Health with Houston Methodist is for the health conscious, curious and even skeptics out there. Each week, our hosts are joined by a Houston Methodist expert to explore an everyday wellness trend or significant health topic.
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On Health with Houston Methodist
Gut Health: When Stress Show Up in Your Stomach
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Ever wonder why stress can trigger butterflies in your stomach, nausea or an urgent trip to the bathroom? In this episode, we explore the fascinating connection between the brain and the gut — discussing why your digestive system is often called your "second brain," the science behind stress-related digestive symptoms and what to do if stress frequently shows up in your gut.
Expert: Dr. Eamonn Quigley, gastroenterologist
Notable topics covered:
- Why the gut is often referred to as the body's "second brain”
- The role of the fight-or-flight response in digestive symptoms
- How anxiety, diet and the gut microbiome can influence digestion
- Acute stress and chronic stress affect the gut differently
- Why anxiety and digestive conditions like IBS often overlap
- Diet strategies to help reduce stress-related digestive symptoms
- What to know before spending money on probiotics
- When digestive symptoms could indicate something more than stress
If you enjoy these kinds of conversations, be sure to subscribe. And for more topics like this, visit our blog at houstonmethodist.org/blog.
♪ ♪
ZACH MOORE:Welcome to On Health, with Houston Methodist. I'm Zach Moore. I'm a photographer and editor here, and I'm also a long-time podcaster.
KATIE MCCALLUM:I'm Katie McCallum, former researcher, turned health writer, mostly writing for our blogs.
ZACH:Katie, not that you look stressed, but are you stressed?
KATIE:I feel like you're cheating because you know me pretty well, and you know I'm a bit of a stress cadet. ZACH: Yeah. Coincidentally, I also often have just a lot of digestive stuff going on, too.
ZACH:Okay. Maybe there's some connection between your stress and your gut. KATIE: There could be. There could be.
KATIE:It certainly feels like it. It's funny because when I think about butterflies in the stomach and things like that, I, as a kid, you know, totally, I was just so nervous for those things. Like, yeah, a big test would make me, you know, super stressed, and I'd feel it as butterflies in my stomach, all those sorts of things. Because I feel like, as an adult, I've kind of outgrown that sort of, like, gut-feeling anxiety and, like, actual digestive stuff has, like, come into play more. ZACH: Okay. Interesting as well, but I don't know how real that is either. You seem like a person that does not get stressed easily.
ZACH:Maybe on the outside. KATIE: Okay. I hide it very well. I will say, in my most stressful moments, I do feel a little bit of a twinge in there.
KATIE:Mm-hmm.
ZACH:I'm not going to quite say butterflies in my stomach because I've always felt that to be a very strange analogy. If you think about it, bugs flying around in your inside organs. It's very strange. But it's true, though. I mean, that's the best explanation for that kind of feeling, I guess. But it is kind of a chicken or the egg thing. I think it's, like, am I stressed? And that creates, you know, my physical, you know, manifestations of that. Or do I get stressed because I feel bad and I don't know why and that sort of thing? So, because you start self-diagnosing and, like, you go to the worst-case scenario and then you start stressing. So, there is definitely a connection between your mind and your body and your health. And sometimes it's intangible, but sometimes it's not. It's quantifiable by science.
KATIE:Really good point, because some of the digestive symptoms are very stressful themselves. Like, if when you are stressed, you know, you got to go to the bathroom a lot, now you're getting stressed about having to go to the bathroom a lot, especially if you're in a place where you, like, you don't have a bathroom available, which, in fact, is another interesting part of stress in the gut in the sense of, like, once you're not near a bathroom, I get stressed when I'm not near a bathroom because then I'm stressed I'm going to have to go to the bathroom. This is a lot of TMI now, but it sets up, I think, this topic of what is going on with the stress in our guts. ZACH: Excellent. And who did we talk to about this, Katie? We talked to Dr. Eamonn Quigley. He is a gastroenterologist here at Houston Methodist, and he's got some really unique insights on this.♪ ♪I've heard the gut described as,"the second brain," and it feels like an interesting way to start this conversation because I'm curious on your thoughts of if it's a good way to sort of explain why our guts are tied to our emotions, similar to how our brain is.
DR. EAMONN QUIGLEY:No, I think it's a very important concept, and it's a fairly new one. Now, on the one hand, we've known probably since prehistoric times that the gut responds to the brain, but what was fairly new, I'd say, certainly within the last century, was the idea that the gut contained a nervous system. So actually, if you examine the gut, either in terms of its anatomy or histology or even in terms of its function, you will find that there are a whole variety of different nerves, whole variety of different neurotransmitters within the gut. In fact, you find virtually all the same anatomical features and physiological features in the gut as you find in the brain, thus emerged the concept of the enteric nervous system or the second brain. Of course, as a gastroenterologist, I would tell you that the gut is much more important and the brain is just an ancillary organ.[Laughing]
KATIE:Okay, I love that, actually. So, when you're saying, you know,"it has a whole nervous system," are we -- Can it operate without the brain almost, or does it still require the brain to kind of, sort of, you know, do what it needs to do?
DR. QUIGLEY:Well, I'm glad you asked me that question, because in a previous life, I actually did research in this area.
KATE:Oh, cool.
DR. QUIGLEY:And actually, you can take the gut in an animal and you can remove all the external nerves, maintain the blood supply, obviously, and the gut will function pretty well. It'll maintain motility, it'll even maintain quite complex motor patterns, and it'll maintain its other functions. So, the way I look at it is that the enteric nervous system, or the second brain, or the little brain within the gut is capable of doing a lot of the functions of the gut. Now input from the brain through another nervous system called the autonomic nervous system modifies that, and also it transmits the signals from the gut to the brain. But in terms of being able to function independently, yes, not completely, but to a considerable extent.
KATIE:That's interesting. And so when we layer on how emotions affect the gut, you know, we know how emotions kind of play in our head. I can kind of spiral in my head about something I did 30 minutes ago that was embarrassing, etcetera. But I think we all know there's sort of things that happen in our stomach and our body when we're nervous or stressed or excited. You get the butterflies in the stomach is kind of a common term. So, what is this link between our emotions and the gut? Is it part of the second brain? Is it something else? Or how are they -- how's it sending it to each other?
DR. QUIGLEY:Well ultimately, whether it's a contraction of the muscle in the gut or it's an increase in the production of fluid by the gut, that will be ultimately mediated by this enteric nervous system. KATIE: Mm-hmm. Now what communicates between it and the central nervous system, the big brain if you like, is what's called the autonomic nervous system. And that's got two branches called the parasympathetic system, which from the point of view of the gut really we talk about the vagus nerve.
KATIE:Okay.
DR. QUIGLEY:And then there's the sympathetic nervous system, which is the flight or fright system. KATIE: Oh yes. Okay. Now that's one level. Now there's another level which can exert control and that's the neuroendocrine system. And in particular, when we talk about stress, that's the hypothalamic- pituitary-adrenal axis, which is also very important for fight and flight. And that through a variety of hormones that are secreted through that system can also influence the gut. And now we're beginning to talk about perhaps a third system, and that is of course the microbiome and how the microbiome can actually communicate to the gut and also communicate all the way to the brain and influence -- the brain in turn can influence the microbiome. So, there certainly are two mechanisms that we can talk about. The first is the autonomic nervous system and secondly via the neuroendocrine axis that I just mentioned. But possibly there may be a third factor in here, which could be the microbiome.
KATIE:So, I have a question about the microbiome here in a minute, but before I get to that, why do we think the gut is even evolved? Why do we think it's involved in these kind of stress responses? Like what benefit is it to have butterflies in your stomach when you're anxious or whatever it is? Do you think there's an evolutionary reason that when I'm stressed I feel it in my gut?
DR. QUIGLEY:Yes, I can see why there would be, because it does give you an alarm signal, which then teaches you that you've got to avoid this particular event or this whatever you've been confronted by. I think that's part of it. And there are probably other factors as well, and that is probably also signaling to the gut that perhaps some things need to be prioritized over others, and that perhaps some of these gut functions may have to take a back seat compared to some of the other more important functions. It's interesting. So, if you think about the influence of stress on the gut, first of all, influence of stress in the gut is normal. It'd be abnormal if you become unduly impacted by things that really are not very stressful to other people, or if you overreact to those stresses. And there are circumstances when that occurs, but I would think in general, these gut reactions are a focus, that they really focus your thoughts on what's going on and how you should react to it.
KATIE:In that regard, what are the most common sort of symptoms of when stress is impacting the gut?
DR. QUIGLEY:Well, there can be a number, but the ones, of course, we're most familiar with are those that you just mentioned, would be diarrhea, for example. You know, before a big test or a big exam or a very stressful situation, having to give a speech at a wedding, whatever it is, you may get some transient diarrhea. It can also lead to nausea and even to vomiting in extreme cases. Those would be the main symptoms that are associated with normal effects of stress.
KATIE:Mm-hmm.
DR. QUIGLEY:Now, in an individual who's very susceptible to stress or maybe has an underlying GI condition, those symptoms may be more severe, or even there may be additional symptoms as well.
KATIE:Since you mentioned the microbiome, I'm curious, how much of a role is diet here? Let's say, for instance, something that typically wouldn't be super stressful to me, but my diet's not quite right, does that kind of predispose you to the stress effects on the gut at all?
DR. QUIGLEY:Well, that's actually a very good question, because if you think about it from an evolutionary point of view, or from maybe teleologically, which you're not supposed to do, why do we have a GI tract? The reason we have a GI tract is to digest and absorb food to sustain the rest of the body. And what is going to be, therefore, the main stimulus to the gut is going to be eating.
KATIE:Mm-hmm.
DR. QUIGLEY:So whatever function you think of in the gut, whether it is motility in the stomach, the small intestine, or the colon, it's the secretion of fluid from the pancreas, the biliary system, the small intestine, etcetera. The main stimulus to all of those is food. So, if you combine food and stress, that may actually exaggerate those responses and give rise to even more symptoms. So, that's one interaction. So, food is very important, and of course, there's another factor that plays in here which is very interesting, and that a lot of people come to the clinic and say,"Oh, doctor, I've got an allergy to 'X'." KATIE: Yeah, that sounds right. And it's always an allergy. Now, if you dig deeper into that, what you find, yes, there are some people who have a food allergy, but that usually doesn't cause a whole lot of GI symptoms. It usually causes more of like hives and difficulty breathing, typical anaphylaxis-type symptoms. But there are a lot of people who are intolerant to certain foods. And there's an additional factor here in that if somebody has, say, goes out to a restaurant, has a meal, and gets sick, they forever associate that food that they ate with getting sick. And there becomes almost like a psychological stress-related link to that particular food, which may lead to symptoms when they eat it the next time. They may actually be intolerant, but may be more of a psychological, stress-related factor. So, these are all intimately related.
KATIE:That's really interesting. So, it's almost like just you can almost make yourself anxious about a type of food rather than the food being what's stressing your system.
DR. QUIGLEY:For good reason, it's called an anticipatory reaction. KATIE: Mm-hmm. So, even before it's presented to you, you say, "Oh, I've had this before. I had a terrible reaction." So that either can lead to the reaction or can exacerbate the reaction.
KATIE:That's so interesting, because I think I probably, well, who knows, I don't wanna diagnose myself here. I think I've done that with cheese for myself. I feel like I'm kind of sensitive to cheese, but now, you know, as you're talking, I'm like, there's a possibility it's probably somewhat in my head or in my gut, I guess we could say in the second brain, where it's just I've kind of talked myself into,"When I eat this, I need to be worried." And so, I kind of just make myself stressed in that sense.
DR. QUIGLEY:Certainly you may not create it, but you may exaggerate it. KATIE: Okay. Gotcha. That's the way to put it.
KATIE:That's so interesting. So, one question I have for you about stress and the effect of stress on the gut, are there specific types of stress that seem to impact the gut the most, or is it just kind of generally anything that might stress you or make you anxious?
DR. QUIGLEY:I think probably everything. From an experimental point of view, there are two general types of stress have been looked at in terms of the gut. One is acute stress and the other is chronic stress. Now acute stress could be anything from getting somebody to listen to two different things in your, you know, one thing in one ear, one thing in another, so-called dichotomous listening, which is very stressful. The other thing would be putting your hand into very cold water and then into hot water. There are a variety of stress, you know, validated stress paradigms that have been developed, but they all look at acute stress. Chronic stress is much more difficult to replicate. One technique that I think was quite interesting was that an individual who used to be a good friend of mine, unfortunately, is no longer with us. So, he developed an experiment whereby they got people to try and park cars in Russia or in London in the middle of the busiest time of the day.
KATIE:I'm already stressed.[Laughing]
DR. QUIGLEY:And they did indeed show, now that's not very long-term, but that's certainly over several hours, and they could demonstrate quite marked effects of stress. A lot of the time, you know, when you're looking at chronic stress, you're more looking backwards. You're saying that, "Oh, this person had a very stressful situation, therefore it may impact their gut function." And there's one area in particular where that's been shown to be quite relevant. So, we now know that if you have a GI infection, if you go out to a restaurant and you get Salmonella or shigella or Campylobacter, whatever, about 10% of individuals who get that exposure and get that infection will go on to develop chronic bowel symptoms. And we refer to that as post-infection IBS. What we also know is that if you were stressed or anxious or depressed or had ever any other traumatic impact on you at the time you got the infection, you're much more likely to develop those chronic symptoms. KATIE: Interesting. That's an interesting one. And that shows, again, this convergence between brain, gut, and microbiome perhaps into developing those symptoms.
KATIE:Yeah, that's super interesting. And another thing that, I mean, I'll let you fact check this part of it. I was reading that some -- that generalized anxiety can sometimes -- Oh no, wait, I have this backwards, that IBS can be treated with medications for generalized anxiety sometimes, which when I was kind of preparing for this, I was like,"That's wild because that seems like another connection of sort of emotional control and back to like the gut." Is that correct? And what do we think that means?
DR. QUIGLEY:Yeah, I'll give you a long answer to a short question. So, let's take irritable bowel syndrome, which is something that I've worked on for many years. So, we know that irritable bowel syndrome has a very strong association with stress and with anxiety, depression, somatization, etcetera. So, but they're very, like in some individuals, there are no anxiety, there are no depression, and all of a sudden it's a major factor. So, also some of the drugs that are used to treat anxiety and depression are also useful in terms of treating the gut. KATIE: Mm-hmm. So for example, if you take something like a tricyclic antidepressant, like amitriptyline or nortriptyline or desipramine, which are commonly used in irritable bowel syndrome. In those cases, you may be largely treating the gut symptoms because of effects they have. Even though they're anti-anxiety medicines, you may be more treating them, using them for their gut effects, because we typically use them in very low doses, doses that may not have a major effect on anxiety or depression. Now, on the other hand, if somebody has irritable bowel syndrome and clearly has a primary generalized anxiety disorder, then you would use doses and drugs, which would be more appropriate for taking that, which may also help the irritable bowel syndrome. But it's a little bit more complicated in terms of interpreting the data, because the drugs that we use, we use them primarily for their gut effects, because they tend to reduce overactive motility, they tend to reduce diarrhea, we would primarily be using them for that reason, but in higher doses, they actually would treat anxiety or depression.
KATIE:Yeah, that's so interesting. Do you think it's just because, like you said, there's this entire nervous system around the gut, so it's just more inputs for things like anxiety to kind of take hold on the gut?
DR. QUIGLEY:Absolutely. KATIE: Okay. So, the way I talk to this with patients is I would say, "I don't think anxiety or depression are causing your irritable bowel syndrome, whatever it is, but I think if you have anxiety or depression and irritable bowel syndrome, it makes your symptoms worse."
KATIE:Gotcha. Okay.
DR. QUIGLEY:It makes your symptoms perhaps more resistant to treatment, and very importantly, it increases the impact of your symptoms. So, I think one of the things that's very important for anybody, for any physician to understand when you talk with a patient with irritable bowel syndrome, is not only to listen to their symptoms and say you've got pain, you've got diarrhea, you've got constipation, but also to understand clearly what is the impact of their symptoms. Are they losing time from school? Are they losing time from work? Are they less productive when they actually are at work? Is it interfering with their personal and social engagements? So, it's very important that you understand those because they are the real impacts of these symptoms.
KATIE:Speaking of, you know, if someone's struggling with what you were just saying, what are some of the best ways to kind of relieve or prevent the effects of stress on the gut? So, like, the gut symptoms, are there things someone can do? Is it diet-related? Is it just being healthy?
DR. QUIGLEY:Looking at -- Let's focus on irritable bowel syndrome. There are several layers here, diet is one factor. So, we know that certain foods, so-called FODMAPs, these fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols, that they certainly aggravate symptoms in some people, and going on a low FODMAP diet will help. We now have good evidence that the Mediterranean diet also helps, and for other people, removing food triggers they'll tell you, "I always get sick with this, I'll get sick with that," then you remove those things. So there are a number of dietary strategies that can help. There are medications that can help, say if pain is a big problem, there are some medications that help with pain in the gut, there are some medications that help with diarrhea, with constipation. But then there's a lot of evidence now to say that what we might say in mind-body therapies, like cognitive behavioral therapy or hypnotherapy, may also help.
KATIE:Since you kind of mentioned constipation and diarrhea, I've always, maybe this is not necessarily related to just stress itself, but generally, I mean, how can one thing cause two very different symptoms? You know, diarrhea is going too much, constipation is not going enough, like, does that vary person by person, or what's the effect there that kind of allows such polarizing kind of symptoms?
DR. QUIGLEY:Well, it does sound counterintuitive, but there's no question that one of the most common complaints of people with irritable bowel syndrome is what we call alternating diarrhea and constipation, a mixed bowel pattern. So, one week they have diarrhea, the next week they feel constipated, next week they're back to diarrhea again. First of all, it's very important in these cases to know exactly what people mean by diarrhea and constipation, because they can easily misinterpret it. Some people may recall having frequent but normal stools, diarrhea, that's not actually diarrhea, that's just having more frequent stools. So, you've got to be very careful to know exactly what people are talking about. Constipation is not a simple symptom either, constipation is not just having less frequent bowel movements, it can be feeling you need to strain, feeling that you're not emptying completely, feeling that you need to take a laxative on a regular basis. They may all occur in the context of actually having a bowel movement every day or every second day, which would be regarded as normal. So, I think we've come a long way towards understanding the complexity of these symptoms and how they can mean different things to different people. So, I think that's a very important point to make at the get-go. Now how can the same condition lead to these different symptoms? That's actually fairly easy to understand if you think about the control of motility and secretion in the gut, because depending on what your input is, whether it's more of a parasympathetic or more of a sympathetic input, or what the neurohormonal input is, that can certainly lead to these different symptoms.
KATIE:But you know, as you're kind of talking about all this, would you say that the gut's like, I mean, you know, we all know the brain's very complex, I mean, it sounds like the gut is maybe, like, is it, do you think it's the second most complex organ?
DR. QUIGLEY:By far the most complex, it's the most sophisticated organ of the body, there's no question about that.
KATIE:Very non-biased answer here, I'm sure. Okay, back to strategies or remedies that people can use. You know, I hear a lot about kind of colon cleanses and prebiotic supplements are everywhere. I think there's like prebiotic water now, I saw at HEB the other day. Then you have probiotics. How important are those for somebody that's like,"Hey, I get stressed easily and it affects my gut a lot"? Or is it just a healthy lifestyle, what would you say there?
DR. QUIGLEY:Well, as, you know, just getting back to the dietary impacts again, so diet is certainly an important part. Now, in terms of interventions that in some way or other modulate the microbiome, there certainly is some evidence here, one of the problems here is quality control. KATIE: Mm-hmm. So, for every probiotic out there that maybe has some good data to show that it's effective, there are probably a thousand which have no data and have no efficacy.
KATIE:Not great odds.
DR. QUIGLEY:Not great odds. So, that's the big problem for the consumer, because these, you know, whether it's a prebiotic or a probiotic, or any of these other over-the-counter things, they're regulated in a completely different way. They don't have to show to the FDA that they're actually effective, they have to show that they're safe. So, the consumer really has got a tough job here. What I would say to people are a few things. First of all, look at the label. What does it say? What does it claim that it does? Does it actually contain what it's supposed to contain? What is it supposed to contain? And you know, because there are certain absolute basics for, say, a probiotic, which is probably what I know most about. So, a probiotic should be clearly defined. What exactly is in that, and that there's nothing else there except what's supposed to be there? And is it in a sufficient concentration to be effective? Does it actually survive for the shelf life of the product, whatever the, is that supposed to be a month or six months? And in the condition it's supposed to be refrigerated, it can be at room temperature. And then is there actual data? Now there are some things that can help you with that, and I always refer people to the website of ISAPP, I-S-A-P-P, which is the International Scientific Association for Prebiotics and Probiotics. It's a non, it's not a company-based or company-affiliated website. It's completely neutral, it's led by scientists, and they have a certain, they have a lot of documentation on their website, including very nice, concise overviews of, you know, what is a probiotic, what is a prebiotic, etcetera.
KATIE:Okay, nice. Another question for you, when we're talking about something like a probiotic, for someone who's just maybe like about to travel and knows they get stressed when they travel, or I've got a big presentation coming up or, you know, a stressful meeting, is that the time to try a probiotic, or is it really meant to be something that you take long-term?
DR. QUIGLEY:Probiotics should be taken long-term, but I don't know of much evidence that a probiotic can help you in that situation. Now, one of the things that's very interesting about, you mentioned about travel, and the very interesting thing about travel is that people tend to become constipated when they travel. And now, some people get very stressed about going on a plane, they may get diarrhea from that. But one of the things, one of the common causes of what we refer to as occasional constipation is travel. And why is that? Is it because of changes in your routine, changes in your diet, unfamiliar surroundings? Maybe, of course, when you go on a plane, you get relatively dehydrated, which of course can contribute to constipation. But it is an interesting observation that travel in itself can be associated with constipation.
KATIE:Yeah, that might be an interesting podcast topic in itself, because that's kind of the, to me, that's always the part of travel I hate, is I do get pretty, like, stressed, and yeah, it affects my body quite a bit when I travel. It's the least fun part about traveling, which is supposed to be something you're enjoying usually because you're going on vacation.
DR. QUIGLEY:Yeah.
KATIE:You know, as we start to kind of wrap up here, when should somebody see a physician about gut issues related to stress? And who do they see? Do you start with the gastroenterologist? Do you start with the therapist? I mean, back to this point of, is it stress or is it in the gut? I mean, how do you know and where do you start?
DR. QUIGLEY:Now, that's a difficult question, but a very important one, because if you think about GI diseases, let's say Crohn's disease or colitis or any GI disease, most of them will be exacerbated by stress. In fact, we know that. So, your first idea or first insight into actually having underlying GI disease may be that it gets worse with stress. So, you'd expect a stress effect to be very short-lived. So, if your symptoms are prolonged, if they're getting worse, even though the stress has gone away, and if there are any symptoms, worrying symptoms like blood in the stool, vomiting blood, losing weight, these would all be reasons to go and see a doctor. In most instances, you can start with your primary care physician and they can, you know, probably define whether this is a relatively acute thing that we can deal with in the short term or whether they need to refer you to a gastroenterologist.
KATIE:Gotcha. Do you think it's ever helpful, you know, back to the sort of microbiome, diet part or even just stress itself being regulated to see a therapist or a dietitian maybe about, you know, some of this stuff?
DR. QUIGLEY:I think that would come from either your primary care doctor or from your gastroenterologist. I think that would be the, like, there should be an initial assessment to know, you know, what particular path should we be following? Should that be a dietary path, should it be a more psychological path, or should we get some basic testing done first or some evaluation before we decide on that? I would say evaluation first and then define those pathways later on.
KATIE:Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. That sounds easy enough, actually. I was expecting it to be way more complicated. All right. Well, anything else that you want our listeners to know today about stress and how it affects the gut? Anything we kind of left out that you wanna talk about?
DR. QUIGLEY:Well, I think one of the things I would like to emphasize is that the whole concept of the brain-gut axis has really been of enormous benefit to physicians and to patients dealing with disorders of so-called gut-brain interaction, they're now called DGBI, because it gives us a scientifically-based understandable concept of this interaction between the brain and the gut. Because when you explain it to people, they understand. They say,"Oh, that makes sense. You know, in this situation I'm more stressed, my symptoms are worse, this is the brain and the gut." And there are situations where the gut influences the brain because the way it goes the other way around and that could be something we deal with another day. But -- So I think that concept has really taken us a long way. And in my career, you know, when I started out in this area, if you told somebody that they had irritable bowel syndrome, they'd almost walk out of the office because they'd say,"Well, you're just telling me there's nothing wrong with me, it's all in my head." And now we've got a situation where people understand the irritable bowel syndrome is a disorder of gut-brain interaction, and that we can do something about it. So, I have witnessed really quite a dramatic shift in the understanding of these disorders, largely because people get it. They get the gut-brain interaction.
KATIE:Yeah, that's so cool. Well, this has been really enlightening. So, thank you. Thank you for talking to me about this today. I know our listeners are really gonna enjoy this too.
DR. QUIGLEY:Thank you very much.♪ ♪
ZACH:So, Katie, are you going to be less stressed now after your conversation with Dr. Quigley?
KATIE:I mean, yes and no. No. Yes, I'm gonna be less stressed, I guess, about some things. I will say the one piece of it that was really helpful for me was hearing about the gut-brain axis, which kind of just, I think, reinforced what I kind of knew is that the two are very linked, our brain and our gut. So, that was good to hear, although that also kind of stressed me out a little bit, because then that makes it very real. ZACH: Right. Well, look, stress comes from uncertainty. Mm-hmm. ZACH: Right? Which comes from a lack of knowledge. Lots of uncertainty in this world, Zach.
ZACH:True, but you got a lot of new knowledge from this conversation. So that should decrease the uncertainty, which should decrease your stress.
KATIE:Okay. I like how you did that. I did not go there. I just went back to my kind of anxious stress loop that I do. No, that's a really good spin on that. It's a very positive, non-anxious spin on this. Yeah, he gave us a lot of really good information about -- Well, first of all, we talked about it being the second brain, your gut being the second brain, which I had heard. So, interesting to know that that's real. It is an incredibly complex organ in itself. And I loved that he kind of at the end, you know what, how serious he was, I don't know, but saying that the gut is probably more complicated, is the most complicated organ. It feels like that in my body sometimes. I don't know about you.
ZACH:Well, I like how you said, well, kind of biased here.
KATIE:But anecdotally, I would say like for me that rings true. And I loved that because I haven't really -- I think it's interesting to hear a doctor frame gut stuff in that very kind of mind/brain way. Yes, it's normal for your brain and the gut to be talking to each other. It's an evolutionary thing from back in the day when your body needed to be ready because a bear was chasing you. I don't have anything like that to worry about today. So it's a normal thing, but it gave us ways to sort of not let it bog us down, which was nice.
ZACH:Well, I also found it interesting that he brought up the genetic memory of when he went somewhere and had a bad meal, for example. And then you go there again and like your body's like,"I don't know, it was bad last time. We shouldn't go again." I know there's a certain fast food place, which I will not mention here by name. But I went there once and I happened to get sick, the sickest I've ever been in my life after that. And I don't think it was because of that place, but I'm always gonna associate those two things. So, I've never been back since.
KATIE:Yeah, you kind of now have made yourself anxious about some digestive stuff. I have a similar one, the worst food poisoning I ever got I have attributed it to a Greek salad that I had, and I am like terrified to eat Greek salad now. And I love Greek salad. I've avoided it for like two years pretty much because of it. Another really interesting thing that I did not know, he mentioned people that get food poisoning, it can sometimes turn into IBS, like long-term IBS. And that's more common if you are stressed when you get the food poisoning. That's a super, like, specific example of how the brain and stress signals then impact the gut. And then that changes you, kind of, for life almost.
ZACH:That's some real mind over matter stuff going on there, right? It's scary to know that your emotional state...
KATIE:Yeah.
ZACH:Can impact your physical, like, long-term health.
KATIE:Right.
ZACH:So, it's all connected. KATIE: It's all connected. But yeah, very interesting conversation. I really enjoyed it. ZACH: Absolutely. All right. Well, that's gonna do it for us this time on On Health with Houston Methodist. Be sure to share, like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We drop episodes Tuesday mornings. So until next time, stay tuned and stay healthy.