The Gut–Immune Connection: How Your Digestion Controls Your Health

What if your immune system strength had less to do with supplements… and everything to do with your digestion?

In this episode of the Energetically Efficient Show, Kristin breaks down the powerful (and often overlooked) connection between your digestive system and immune system and why optimizing your gut may be the missing piece to feeling better, having more energy, and staying healthy long-term.

If you’ve ever struggled with bloating, fatigue, brain fog, frequent illness, or stubborn weight issues, this episode will completely shift how you think about your health.

Kristin walks you through the science in a way that actually makes sense—explaining how your body breaks down food, absorbs nutrients, and uses those nutrients to fuel your immune system at a cellular level.

You’ll also learn how poor digestion can lead to issues like leaky gut, food sensitivities, and chronic inflammation and what you can start doing today to support your body naturally.

Tune in to hear:

•  Why your digestive system is a core part of your immune system
•  The 4 key parts of digestion and how they impact your health 
•  What “leaky gut” is and how it affects your entire body 
•  How undigested food particles can trigger immune responses 
•  The difference between mechanical vs. chemical digestion
•  How your body identifies and fights off bacteria, viruses, and toxins 
•  Why stomach acid is your first line of defense against illness 
•  The role of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals in immune function 
•  How poor diet impacts your ability to fight off infections 
•  Why gut health directly impacts energy, metabolism, and appearance

Resources mentioned:

Join our next round of Radiant Reset: https://shorturl.at/BFBbx

Hot & Fit After 40 Waitlist: https://energeticallyefficient.com/hot-and-fit-af

Kristin's Supplement Recommendations: https://us.fullscript.com/welcome/krowell

• Biotics Research Corporation Beta Plus
• Biotics Research Corporation Beta TCP

Nutritional & Physical Degeneration by Dr. Weston A. Price: https://amzn.to/3On7hw6

Redmond's Re-Lyte Electrolytes https://redmond.life/collections/re-lyte-hydration use discount code GOLDEN15 for 15% off

Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@energeticallyefficient

Connect with Kristin:

Work with Kristin 1:1: https://energeticallyefficient.com/book-now/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristin_rowell_

Website: https://energeticallyefficient.com/ 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We need an optimally functioning digestive system to absorb the nutrients in our food in order to feed our cells. As a quick reminder, you are a bag of cells. Yes, we obsess over this body and want everything to look perfect and we love it, but at its core, you guys, it's literally a bag of cells. Remember, middle school biology, cells make up tissues, tissues make up organs, organs make up the system, and the system makes up the body. Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Energetically Efficient Show. I am your host, Kristen Rowell, and I'm excited about today's topic, as usual. I feel like I say that every week when we come on here, but today we're talking about something that I've actually given a talk about before. So I deep dove into a few rabbit holes about this topic. And this is how we improve the strength of your immune system through your digestion. And if the thought of your immune system being tied to your digestive system is a new concept for you, get ready, buckle up because this will be an awesome episode. And this is important for you, for your kids, for your partner, spouse, loved ones, parents, anyone who you care about, you want to make sure that you optimize or help them optimize how they can support their immune system. And your digestive system is a key component to that, which is amazing. So, in order for me to talk about this with you, in order for you to understand how we can strengthen our immune system through our digestive system, you'll first need to understand a little bit about how your immune system works. You're also going to, of course, need to understand a little bit about how your digestive system works. And then how do those two systems relate to each other for optimal health? And so then what I want to leave you with in this podcast episode is takeaways that you can do now, that your kids, your loved ones that you personally can do now to improve your digestive system, to strengthen your immune system so that you can lose weight, look better, and feel better. And believe it or not, strengthening your immune system will help you do all of those functions. So the first thing I want to talk about is your digestive system, which has four different parts. So the four parts to your digestive system are your upper GI, which is your upper gastrointestinal tract, and that includes everything from when you put the food into your mouth and then your esophagus down into your stomach and your pancreas. That's your upper GI. And again, that's your upper gastrointestinal tract. And if you didn't know this, your gastrointestinal tract and your digestive system are the exact same thing. Okay, they mean the same thing. So when we talk about our upper GI, it again is those components which include the salivary glands, the tongue, the epiglottis, the esophagus, the stomach, and of course the pancreas. After you move out of the upper GI, after the food rather moves out of the upper GI, out of the stomach, with the pancreas gets involved, especially if your meal had a lot of carbohydrate in it, the pancreas is going to get involved to secrete the hormone insulin. The next part of your digestive system, part number two, is your liver and gallbladder. And your liver and gallbladder get involved to inject bile into the process. And bile is stored in the gallbladder. The whole entire purpose of your gallbladder is to be a storage form for bile, and bile is made in the liver. So one of the things that I go crazy about, and when people are say things like, oh, you don't need your gallbladder, you can just take it out. No, when you take your gallbladder out, it puts a lot of strain on your liver because your liver no longer has a deep freeze to store bile. Your liver has to work overdrive and your liver needs more support if you don't have a gallbladder. So, one quick tip for those of you who had your gallbladder stolen at some point from one of the gallbladder robber doctors that I like to say, you want to make sure that you're taking a supplement containing oxbile and ideally also beets, pretty much for the rest of your life. Okay. You don't have a gallbladder and your liver needs support in the form of oxbile and beets. And so I can put a link below this video for my two supplements that I recommend to really support the body when it comes to both oxbile and beets. So for those of you with no gallbladder, or frankly, those of you who have a lot of liver strain, that's just a quick free tip for you. And I'll put those links below this video. The third section of your digestive system is your small intestine. And I just love this magical organ so much because after the food comes out of the stomach and the liver and gallbladder get involved to inject bile into the process, the food moves down into the small intestine. And this is the awesome magical organ where all of the nutrients get absorbed. This is where your small intestine has little finger-like cilia on the inside walls that are grabbing at the DHA, the vitamin E, the vitamin C, the piece of magnesium, the little bit of EPA, all the different kinds of macro and micronutrients that you are consuming get absorbed in the small intestine. And then the fourth component for your digestion, after the food makes it out of the waste product, makes it out of the small intestine, it comes through the large intestine, which is of course the colon before it exits the body. So those are the four parts of your digestive system. Again, upper GI, liver and gallbladder, small intestine, and large intestine. And of course, the large intestine, the colon is another really important component of your health because colon health is so critical to the health of your body. We do not want you guys, we do not want toxic sludge food getting stuck in our colon. When people go through my Radiant Reset Detox course, and just a quick sidebar plug for that, I'm going to put a link below this video, they cannot get over how much flatter their tummy becomes because they get all of this old, gross fecal matter that has been hanging out in their large intestine for days, weeks, months, or even years. Impacted fecal matter is a real thing in people's large intestine and they're very unaware of it until they do something like my comprehensive radiant reset detox course, which I personally do quarterly. And you're welcome to join us for any of those quarterly cleanses that we do. Again, there'll be a link below the video for the Radiant Reset Detox course. Okay, so when we are digesting our food, what are we actually doing? Well, all that we're doing when we're digesting our food, from the time that the food goes in our mouth until the hours to days later when it comes out of our body, is the mechanical and chemical breakdown of food. That's it. Digestion is the mechanical and chemical breakdown of food. So when we say mechanical, we are digesting our food and breaking it down mechanically because we have these awesome teeth and jaws that are going to massacate the food and get it into a mushy pulp. Ideally, you would not, like I did last night, I ate a filet that I made in my air fryer last night. I made a filet mignon for dinner. It was so good. I had six ounces of a filet mignon for dinner last night, and I chewed it really, really, really well to support my digestive process. How often have you eaten a piece of steak in the past and took like two or three bites and just swallowed it whole? That is wreaking havoc on your digestive system because we want to mechanically break down the food. You want to use those teeth and the jaw to masticate the food down into as mushy as a pulp as possible. In fact, in a perfect world, you would chew 25 to 30 times before you swallow. I know. I've said this on other podcast episodes, and people are like, 25 to 30 times? What are you talking about? I don't have time for that. Well, then you shouldn't be eating a meal if you don't have time to sit down and properly digest your food. So that is mechanical. And I just should put one more plug in here for the mechanical digestion. I several years ago taught a kids' nutrition course. And it was so funny to me because the first piece of homework that I gave these kids between our first teaching and the next week when they came back to meet with me is I said, You've got to chew your food, you guys, 25 to 30 times before you swallow. And they're all like, okay. I mean, these little kids were so excited to do it. And without exception, every single one of them came back the next week and said, Oh my gosh, Kristen, my jaw is sore from chewing that much. And that is such a sad comment on today's society is we do not use these jaws. It's the reason that facial structures are changing. It's the reason that more kids need braces. It's the reason that we don't have these beautiful square jaws that we used to have with all these different Aboriginal tribes for hundreds, thousands of years. So the foundation of my nutritional therapy school was based on a book called Nutritional and Physical Degradation by Dr. Weston A. Price. And Dr. Weston A. Price was a dentist who went around in the very late 1800s and studied the dental caries and the jaw structures of humans in Aboriginal tribes. So literally like tribes that had not been contaminated, I'll say, by a Western diet of sugar and processed garbage. They were eating truly with the land, truly as their ancestors had eaten. And it didn't matter whether these tribes were in Ireland or Russia or South Africa or Middle Africa or Indonesia or Japan or Australia or anywhere, anywhere that there was an original population, Greenland, Iceland, you know, Ethiopia, it doesn't matter. He studied the down carries in the jaw structures and then wrote this whole book about the fact that when you introduce sugar into the diets of these tribes, everything changes. They get all these cavities, their jaw structures over time become more narrow. They don't have these beautiful square jaws from chewing well. And so for you parents, don't get me started on the squeezy packs and all the soft foods and the applesauces and all of these things that we feed kids nowadays, where we don't cause them to chew. A two-year-old should be able to hold a tomahawk steak and chew on it with their jaw. It should strengthen their jaw. They should be able to do that. But because we're in such a paranoid society and everyone needs to wear a helmet and no one can be left alone with it. I'm not saying leave a two-year-old alone with a tomahawk steak. Let me be clear. But that child should be able to chew on that bone and that meat, which will strengthen the jaw. And it's actually a very good source of fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, and protein, of course, for the child. So that's just my little sidebar about the fact that we don't chew. So I said already that digestion is the mechanical and chemical breakdown of food. So what's the chemical part? Well, the chemical part is that even when we start thinking about food, this is why I always say digestion begins in the brain. It doesn't begin in the mouth, it begins in the brain. Because when we even start thinking about the fact that we're going to eat, if we're standing in front of our skillet and we're mixing around grass-fed butter and all these awesome vegetables, and we're adding in our grass-fed ground beef and we're adding in maybe some pesto. We're making this really delicious fragrant meal. We've got garlic and onions in there. Our brain starts to be like, oh wow, I get to eat this soon. And it tells our salivary glands to start producing saliva. And the saliva from our salivary glands, that is the chemical breakdown of food. So we're getting mechanical because of our jaws massacating the food with our teeth and our jaw structures. And we're getting chemical because of those amazing salivary enzymes that are producing saliva to chemically break down the food further. So again, digestion is the mechanical and chemical breakdown of food. I promise you, I will get to what this has to do with the immune system and how you can strengthen your immune system through digestion. So when we're eating all that awesome food that's coming into our body, remember the macronutrients that we're consuming. I'm not going to talk about the micronutrients right now. I'm going to talk about the macronutrients, they are the classic three: protein, fats, and carbs, right? And if you do it my way, which I would love, is that the carbs that you're eating would have a fair amount of fiber because fiber is such an important nutrient. But why do we need to think about how our digestive system works when we're consuming this awesome protein, these awesome fats and this awesome carbs? It doesn't matter what we're eating if none of the nutrition within the molecules of those food isn't getting absorbed. So our digestive system, remember I told you once it gets out of the stomach and it goes down into the small intestine, that's where we absorb all the awesome nutrients. That's where in the protein that you're eating, the cilia in your small intestine is like, oh, there's some glycine, there's some methionine, there's some leucine, there's some valine. Those are the amino acids that are in the protein that you're eating, and your small intestine then absorbs that to send those molecules throughout your body where it's needed to maybe repair your bicep because you just did a really hard workout. Maybe your butt is super sore because you did a ton of squats. Those amino acids are going to go to as repair molecules to those parts of your body. And it can't do that unless your body is properly absorbing that nutrition, unless your digestive system, your small intestine specifically, and even your large intestine are absorbing that nutrition. Okay. And then separate from the macronutrients, separate from the proteins, the fats, and the carbs, we of course also have our micronutrients. So we have vitamins. We have minerals in the vitamin category. We might have, you know, vitamin B, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin D. There's a variety of B vitamins, of course. And then our minerals, we have both our macrominerals and our microminerals. So this might be your sodium, your potassium, your calcium, your magnesium, or it might be your iron, your zinc, your copper, your manganese, your molybidium, your lithium, your rubidium, all of these different nutrients need to get absorbed by the body so they can be dispersed throughout the body to be used where they are needed. So just thinking about the fact that digestion is the mechanical and chemical breakdown of food. And I'm just looking at a couple of my notes here. I just want to remind you that when we ingest the food, that propulsion, that swallowing, all of that mechanical stuff that we're doing to bring the food down into the stomach, there's also the chemical stuff happening with our saliva. Everything as it gets down, chemically and mechanically, then we have this absorption happening. So once we mechanically and chemically break down the food, then our body's gonna absorb the nutrients and water to the, it's gonna go to our blood vessels, it's gonna go to our lymph. That's gonna happen through the small intestine. And then the water is gonna go to our blood vessels through the large intestine, and this is how it gets dispersed throughout the body. Okay. So think about it this way, you guys, as we get into the immune system soon. We need an optimally functioning digestive system to absorb the nutrients in our food in order to feed our cells. As a quick reminder, you are a bag of cells. Yes, we obsess over this body and want everything to look perfect and we love it. But at its core, you guys, it's literally a bag of cells. Remember, middle school biology, cells make up tissues, tissues make up organs, organs make up the system, and the system makes up the body. So your small intestine is an organ in your digestive system of your body, and that organ is made up of tissues, and those tissues are made up of cells. And what are those cells made up of? What you're eating, what you're drinking, what you're not eating, what you're not drinking isn't in there. So this is why the nutrition and what we feed our body is so critically important to support your entire body because what we feed our body is our cells, is literally our cells. Okay, so I want to move to the immune system. And I'm gonna try in this part of the podcast because I could talk about this stuff forever. I could nerd out on this and go down as many rabbit holes as possible, but I want to talk about it from as simple of a way as I can, because really what I care about is helping you optimize your immune system through your digestion so that you don't get sick, so that you feel good, so that your brain works good, so that you look better, so that your tummy's flatter, so that you feel better, so you look and feel as best as you can and you are optimizing your metabolic health. So if we think about our immune system, we could have different enemies that come into our immune systems. Like when our immune system gets activated, it's in response to some sort of, I'll call it a foreign invader. So our immune system gets activated potentially by a bacteria. So of course, if you get a bacterial infection, you've been on antibiotics perhaps in the past, you know someone who has. There was an overgrowth of some kind of bacteria. So bacteria could be one of the foreign invaders. The foreign invader could also be a virus, right? Who's had a virus in the past? We know that there's been viruses that have existed, certain things that have strewn about the planet in the last several years. So it could be a bacteria, it could be viruses. Those are both foreign invaders. It could be, and this is just another thing that gets a little bit nerdy down the rabbit hole, it could be a virally infected host cell. So there could be a host cell that was infected with a virus. They consider that in the science, separate from a virus. But for our purposes, let's just say bacteria or virus. And then it also could be, and this is what I found fascinating when I did this research, it could be a foreign, okay, just wait for a second. Foreign protein, fat, or carb. And it's like, what do you mean a foreign protein, fat, or carb? Well, what I mean by that is, and this is a great example, when I was in nutritional therapy school, there was a woman who gave an example of her particular scenario. And when you guys hear this, you're gonna be like, what? Okay, that never even computed for me. So this particular woman was just having a lot of health issues. She was having rashes, she was exhausted, she was having brain fog, she was having all sorts of problems, all sorts of weird digestive stuff, stuff with her stool, so just we not feeling great. So, of course, like most people, she was trying to figure it out, and so she went to get blood work. And when she came back after getting the blood work, she went back to meet with the doctor, and the doctor sat down with her and he was pretty serious, and he was like, Has anyone ever told you that you have leaky gut? And she's like, No, what's that? And just to be clear, leaky gut isn't a quote unquote medical diagnosis, but a lot of practitioners use that term to describe a condition in the body, specifically the gut. And when I say gut, I mean smaller, large intestine, where things are not working optimally, where parts of the digestive system, meaning, again, those last two, the last two parts, the part three and part four, the small intestine and large intestine are not working optimally. And it's usually because the integrity of the wall of the small intestine specifically, which should operate like a jellyfish, which should let certain things out, let certain things in, let certain things out, let certain things in. The optimal integral wall of a small intestine should be the consistency of wet paper towel. And as you can imagine, you can puncture wet paper towel pretty easily with your finger, but it also has some integrity to it. You know, you can't just touch it and it breaks. You'd actually have to pierce it pretty, not pretty hard, but you'd have to have a little bit of force behind it. And so when he asked her, have you ever had anyone tell you leaky gut? She said, Well, no, why do you say that? And he said, Well, in your blood, in your samples of blood that we have in these vials that you gave us a week or two ago, we found a number of food particles floating in your blood. Okay, guys, let me be very clear. Food particles should not be floating in your blood. If food particles are floating in your blood, you have leaky gut. Again, can't do a medical diagnosis. It's not a diagnosis. But the only way that food particles that come into your mouth, go down your esophagus, go into your stomach, go out your stomach and into your intestines, the only way those food particles get into your blood is if you have leaky gut. It gets the particles after they go into your stomach and get expelled out of the stomach. And by the way, in your stomach, you guys, your stomach should be so acidic that if you put your finger in your stomach, you would burn your finger. That's how acidic our stomach is, because our stomach is your first line of defense against any pathogen. It's your first line of defense against bacteria that you consume. It's your first line of defense against viruses. If you eat a piece of sushi and there's a parasite on the salmon sushi, your stomach acid should be so strong, it should be able to kill it. Now, everyone has parasites. I'll do a whole different podcast about parasites at some point because I find the topic of parasites so fascinating. I find parasite cleanses so useful and so important in part of our modern day society. But for right now, let's just say you need to have sufficient stomach acid to be able to provide your first line of defense against pathogens, which is just one of the basic reasons that your digestive system and immune system are related. If you don't have enough stomach acid in your digestive system, when you get a bacteria or a pathogen that your immune system wants to fight off, you already are going to have an uphill battle because you didn't have enough stomach acid to kill that pathogen. And now that pathogen is making its way throughout your body and it's wreaking havoc on your body. Back to my story about the woman with leaky gut. So she had leaky gut. She was like, this is unbelievable. I had no idea that I could have leaky gut or that that's what was causing all my issues. She went on a six-month to 12-month gut healing protocol and she was like a different person. No skin rashes, no brain fog, no low energy, no digestive issues. Truly, a lot of her health problems were caused by her leaky gut. What I just mentioned was, and I'm I know I'm all over the place, but I was just trying to explain to you that would be a foreign protein carbohydrator or fat. Okay. When the doctor looked at her and said, we found food particles in your blood, that's what I mean when I say that the invader into your body could be a foreign protein carbohydrate or fat. Your blood shouldn't have food in it. So just to contextualize this and to help you understand how this relates to the immune system, how the immune system and the digestive system are related, is I need to explain to you what the immune system is always doing. So your immune system, I want you to think of it not really as prison guards, but let's call it your security system in your body. Okay, your immune system is like your security system. So there's two questions that your immune system is always asking your body. It's literally patrolling, pick. Your little molecules, your immune system patrolling your body, and it's looking for invaders, it's looking for bacteria, it's looking for viruses, it's looking for these foreign objects that obviously in this woman's case was foreign carbohydrates, lipids, or proteins. But the immune system isn't really discriminating into what it doesn't care if it's a foreign lipid or a bacteria or a virus. It just knows something's in the blood that's not supposed to be here. Because the first question, it's your immune system is asking two questions. It spots what it detects to be a foreign invader, and it's first saying, Are you me? Okay, are you supposed to be here? Are you part of this body? Are you part of this system? Are you just a natural part of the body? Are you a healthy cell? And so it's asking that. It's saying, Are you me? And then if the answer is no, it's not me, the next question it's asking is, are you safe? Your immune system is always patrolling the body. This is your security system. Are you me? Are you safe? Think of it as your ring camera, your ring security. Are you me and are you safe? So are you me? Nope, you're the UPS guy. Okay, are you safe? Yeah, UPS guy is probably safe just dropping a package off of your front door, turning around and leaving. Your immune system wouldn't go haywire about that. But if it detects something that isn't safe, it's a foreign carbohydrate, lipid, or fat that it doesn't know what that, or protein rather, that it doesn't know what that is, or if it's a bacteria or pathogen, knowing it's not safe, knowing it came into the body to cause destruction, if it's a parasite, any sort of pathogen, it's like we have to go on overdrive. Alarm bells, alarm bells, alarm bells. And the immune system goes into activation to kill that invader. Okay. The immune system is working to kill that invader. So it is going to, without going into all of the nerdy science, and I have a fair amount of notes here that I don't want to get too far down the rabbit hole, is there are defense in terms of you'll, I'll just use some of these words so you can understand some of these things, would be things like neutrophils. There's also monocytes and macrophages. There, we have T cells, we have B cells, and we have different kinds of immune systems, which I'll talk about, which the is the innate immune system. And then you work your way up to the adaptive immune system. And so I want to talk about each of those for you. And before we get that, let me just talk about the three subsystems in the immune system. I told you this one was gonna get a little bit sciencey, but hopefully you can stay with me. So the three subsystems to the immune system, and when I say these, you're gonna be like, oh yeah, Kristen, that makes sense. The first would be the integumentary system. So the integumentary system is think of your skin, your hair, your nails, like things that are not necessarily all physical barriers, because this also includes your glands and your nerves, but that is part of your immune system. It's a subsystem into your immune system. Another subsystem in your immune system, the second one, is your lymphatic system. And this is gonna transport lymph and then white blood cells throughout the blood in the body. Okay, so your lymph system is gonna do that. And then the third subsystem to your immune system is your digestive system. And again, we're talking all about how the digestive system and the immune system are related. So it's natural that the digestive system would be one of these subsystems of the immune system. So let's talk about the three lines of defense of the immune system because I went through all of that awesome information in terms of how the digestive system works. So now I want to teach you more about how the immune system works. I already told you the immune system is patrolling your body, saying, Are you safe and are you me? But we have these three lines of defense. So the first is the physical or the natural barriers. So this would be things like you get something in your eye, your tears are gonna help to expel that thing from your eye. You have mucus that comes out of your nose. This is a physical barrier that if you get some sort of parasite in there or virus, or you are exposed to someone's COVID, you might get physical mucus that comes out to get that out of your nose. You will blow your nose to get your virus or your bacteria out of your nose. Skin. Your skin is a great physical barrier. Okay, so skin is a physical barrier. Other physical barriers might be your earwax. So you might have earwax that prevents something from getting into your ear, your stomach acid, which I talked about for a little bit. Again, your stomach acid, you guys, is your first line of defense against any pathogens. So we're talking tears, stomach acid, earwax, I talked about the mucus, skin, and then urine. That's another physical barrier that helps to keep those things at bay. So after your physical barriers, if the invader, if the pathogen, if the bacteria, if the foreign lipid protein or carbohydrate gets past the physical barriers, then next, what gets activated or the second line of defense of your immune system is called your innate immunity. Okay. So after the physical barrier, your second is your innate immunity. And the innate immunity is different depending on whether the invader is a bacteria, okay, or whether the invader is a virus. So I'm just going to talk about the differences because this is again your second line of defense. So your first line of defense is all of those different physical barriers we talked about from earwax to tears to mucous membranes to urine to skin, et cetera. And the second line of defense is your immune system, which has a difference between bacteria and virus. And for the most part, they're very similar, but this gets a little science-y. So I just want you to stick with me for a little bit. So what happens with the immune system when it comes to the bacteria? So your innate immunity is going to be activated. And what it's going to do is it's going to activate something called complement system proteins in the blood. Okay? Complement system proteins. You might be like, oh, it's protein. That's good. That's good for me. And complement system proteins are good, assuming the body can actually clear them. So what complement system proteins do is they work to kill the invader. So they're going to act as an alarm to the next level of protection. They do two things. They're going to kill the invader. They can't kill it, they're like, uh, APB, APB, the invader's still here. We tried to kill it. We couldn't. You have to activate the next level. And so the next level is macrophages or macrophages. You've probably heard this term before. And what macrophages do, these are cool. Since the complement system proteins couldn't kill the invader, macrophages work to eat the invader. Okay. They're going to work through phagocytosis to eat it. It's like, all right, we couldn't kill you. I'm just going to eat you and swallow you and put you in my body. And so they are going to act as alarm to the next level of protection. So if they weren't able to eat all of the invaders or eat any of the invaders, they're like, oh, we tried, we tried to eat it, couldn't eat it. So they're going to alert the next alarm system, which is they're going to use cytokines to the next level of protection. So they're going to act as an alarm via cytokines. And then this next level and last level of protection for the innate immunity for bacteria is something called neutrophils. So I mentioned that a few minutes ago, but the important thing to remember about neutrophils is that they're most, they actually are the most abundant white blood cells in the bloodstream. They actually will leave the bloodstream. They will enter the affected tissue. So remember, in your body, cells make up tissues, tissues make up organs, organs make up systems, systems make up the body. So they will enter the affected tissue, they will eat the bacteria. This is the bacteria that's been invading, and they will release a toxic soup of chemicals to kill the invaders. And so just so you guys know, this last part, it actually wreaks havoc on our guts. So when we're activating the innate immune system to kill bacteria, we're actually doing a lot of harm to our gut. That's why when we get bacterial infections and then we take antibiotics on top of it, our gut is like, ugh. And I am someone who has been on antibiotics already this year. And so I will just tell you that it is not fun to have to be engaged in all of this gut rehab. I'm going to be rehabbing my gut for the next six months to a year. And I have a whole gut healing protocol that I talked about in a prior podcast episode in terms of what I'm doing to heal my gut. So check out that episode all about my antibiotics this year. So that's really the process, you guys, of the innate immune system when it comes to bacteria. So I hope I haven't lost you yet, but I do want to talk a little bit about the innate immunity with respect to a virus because the process is different. So you can understand why it relates so much to a digestive system. And then we're going to talk about the third and final layer to the immune system. Okay, so physical barriers was first, and what we're on right now is innate immunity, which is second. And the only thing that I'm doing here in innate immunity is explaining the difference of what our immune system does when it's a bacteria that infects our body versus a virus. So when it comes to a virus, if the virus stays in the blood, it's easy. It's actually the same process of the bacteria. Meaning the first thing is that complement system proteins work to kill the invader. If they can't kill the invader, they make the alarm bells to the next level, which is the macrophages, which eat the invader. And if the macrophages can't eat the invader, what they're doing is they're alerting the cytokines, the next level of defense, and that's that neutrophils, right? And so those are going to really kill, they're basically bringing out all-out war, and all of that wreaks havoc on the gut. And that's what the virus also does as long as the virus stays in the blood. However, sometimes, and this is if you get really sick with a virus, and some of you may have had this experience, or you have a loved one who did, when the virus makes it past the blood into other cells, so it gets out of the blood and gets to other cells, then what viruses can do, and this is when you can get so sick, and this is really what a lot of people experience during the time of COVID, is the virus can get into your cell, hide in your cell, and then replicate. So keep in mind what your immune system is doing when it's patrolling the blood is are you me? Are you safe? Are you me? Are you safe? If it's not even seeing the thing to say, are you me and are you safe, because it's hiding in the cells, because this virus is so sophisticated that it's hiding in the cells and then replicating, replicating, replicating, replicating, which is terrible. This is why some people can get all of a sudden hit like a ton of bricks with a virus. It then after it replicates all over in these cells, the virus bursts back into the bloodstream with tons of new infected cells. So imagine your immune system is like patrolling, patrolling, nope, don't see anything, don't see anything, don't see anything. And all of a sudden, out of the cells burst out all of these virally infected cells into the bloodstream. And the body's like, oh my God. So now what your innate immune system does in this scenario, because our bodies are so sophisticated, is this is when natural killer cells come to the rescue. So you have something called natural killer cells, which is so interesting. These are activated in response to the macrophage derived cytokines. So remember on that second level, when the macrophages are using cytokines to activate the neutrophils, the macrophage-derived cytokines, remember we heard about during COVID, a cytokine storm. Remember that? That's to activate these natural killer cells. And these natural killer cells are so sophisticated, they have the ability to sniff out good cells from bad cells. They can sniff out viruses, cancers. They know whether it's a good cell or a bad cell. They're very, very smart cells. And so natural killer cells are constantly working to identify the virus and destroy it. They're basically like, I'm not leaving until this job is done. I'm gonna kill, kill, and kill. So if your body, if your immune system is deficient, again, you're gonna have more natural killer cells if you're eating well, if you're getting your protein, if you're getting your healthy fats, if you're getting your fiber in, if you're eating vitamins, if you're eating minerals, if you're getting all the nutrition to make the healthiest cells, including natural killer cells, right? These are cells in your body. They are made through the food that you eat. So if you have more of them, you're gonna be like, oh, the innate immunity took care of it. Now, if you don't, if you're a person who eats Cheetos for breakfast andor cereal for breakfast and Cheetos for lunch and Domino's pizza for dinner, you're not gonna have a lot of really healthy natural killer cells. I'm sorry. You're not giving your body the raw materials to be able to create a healthy immune system through your digestion. So now this is when the adaptive immunity takes place. And so the adaptive immunity has two different processes. One are called B cells and one are called T cells. You may have heard of B cells or T cells before. I mentioned them several minutes ago. Not sure whether you even heard it or digested it, but this is the third and final step of the immune system. Okay. We talked about the first step being physical barriers. We talked about the second step being innate immunity. And now we're getting into the third step, which is adaptive immunity. And you don't want to have to activate your adaptive immunity because it means the first two parts of your immune system were not strong enough to kill the bacteria, virus, or other pathogen that was invading your body. So let's talk briefly about the B cells and the T cells, and then I'm gonna wrap it all up for you in terms of how this immune system relates to the digestive system. And I promise you we'll get there. So hang with me just on B cells and T cells in case this is interesting to you. So with your B cells, these things are hanging out in your lymph and your spleen. So for those of you who don't have a spleen, you don't have as many B cells, you probably are a lot more prone to being sick. People don't realize that when they get different organs taken out of them, it affects their body in many different ways. But so your B cells hang out in your lymph and spleen, waiting for antigens to activate them. So they just wait to be activated, these B cells. They're just hanging out. Okay. And an antigen could be a bacteria, it could be a parasite, it could be a virus, or it could be one of those irritating foreign protein, fat, or carb molecules. Those could activate the B cells. So in your adaptive immune system, this final straw, these B cells are hanging out and they are now activated by the bacteria or the virus or other pathogen. And then once they're activated, they double and then they double again and then they double again. So now you have all these B cells. After one week, you guys, this is insane to me. You have about 20 billion B cells after just one week of activation of these B cells. Those B cells then pump out antibodies as a at a rate of 2,000 antibodies per second. I have to take a sip of water because that's like, huh? You're getting 2,000 antibodies per second, okay? And the antibodies that are made from these B cells that were activated by the antigen, by the parasite, or by the virus, by the pathogen, these antibodies that are made are immunoglobulins. And you've probably heard of the term immunoglobulins. It's one of the reasons that people take things like colostrum. They're like, oh, I've heard colostrum is good for me. Why is colostrum good for me? Well, it has some immunoglobulins in it. So do a lot of other supplements that we can take. But IgM is one immunoglobulin. IgE is one, IgA is one, IgG is one. There are lots of different ones. But IgM helps the immune system do its job better. So when we have more IgM in the body, that innate immune system, which was our last system that we exited out of to get to adaptive immunity because the third level had to be initiated here. Then IgM is going to help the immune system do its job better, the innate immune system that is. And then whether it's IgA, IgG, or IgE, those are also immunoglobulins, it depends on which type of invader and the location of the B cells. So that's getting way too down the nerdy science rabbit hole about it. So most B cells, just so you know, they only last about a week and then they die. But the whole point of them is they get activated by this virus, by this bacteria, by this foreign invader of the protein, lipid or carb. And then they multiply, they replicate, you get billions of them, and they produce these immunoglobulins to help strengthen and then get rid of the invader. And so those B cells will eventually die. Okay, so that's how B cells can help your adapt. That's how they work in the adaptive immune immune system. And if you have the T cells instead, so I just want to talk about this difference, and I'm gonna wrap it all up for you as to how it relates to the digestive system. T cells are also hanging out in the lymph and they're waiting for antigens to activate them. And again, the antigen could be the irritating the back, the irritating foreign protein, lipid, or carb, or it could be the virus, or it could be the bacteria. And then once they're activated, they double again and again and again. So so far we're still talking about the same thing. T cells work just like B cells so far, but after one week, you only have about 10,000 T cells. Whereas B cells, you have billions. So just remember, B billions. T cells, you only have about 10,000. So this is because T cells are just a little more high maintenance. So where are my high maintenance peeps? T cells, those are you guys, okay? T cells are like, well, we don't really want to make these antibodies because we kind of want someone to come and help us. So they have to have helpers. So T cells have either T1, T2, or T17. Who names these? I don't know. This is why scientists are hysterical. So they can't make antibodies. Remember how the B cells just start churning out those antibodies, which make the immunoglobulins? T cells have to have these helpers, and T2 is the helper T cell connected to digestion. Right? Okay, so this is just one of the connections here. So when bacteria or parasites or undigested food is the invader in the digestive system, T2 is the helper that's gonna help the T cell activate and create those antibodies. T2 is gonna stimulate B cells to produce IgE and IgA antibodies. And I know I'm probably losing some of you here, so I'm gonna wrap this up quick by just last point, because I love these guys. Killer T cells. Okay, just like you have natural killer cells, you also have something really special called killer T cells. And these are used like the natural killer cells in the innate immune system. But in this adaptive immune system that we're in, when the infection gets into the cells, these killer T cells are so hardcore and savage, they reproduce and destroy this bacteria, pathogen, et cetera, pair, you know, virus, whatever it is. So killer T cells and natural killer cells are from the innate immune system, and killer T cells are from the adaptive immune system, and both are really important in your immune system. So basically, what I want you to hear, this is the biggest takeaway I want you to hear, is that your digestive system and your immune system truly work together for optimal health. So just to bring it all together and to summarize this connection, which I told you I would do, when we ingest our food. So when you start eating a bite of food when you're eating a meal, you really have to consider breaking it down into the smallest molecule. You don't want these big undigested food particles because if you are someone who is prone to or suffers from leaky gut, then you're really going to create havoc on your immune system. So please, please, please chew your food. Have your kids chew your food, practice chewing your food and lead by example. Improperly digested food can create dysbiosis, food sensitivities, allergies, all sorts of other calamity in the body. So you want strong mucosal lining, which requires your body to have lots of IgA. Consider taking a supplement with IgA. Consider taking colostrum, consider taking things that strengthen the lining of your gut. And then, of course, proper digestion and nutrient-dense food is gonna create a strong immune system ready to deal with, attack, and kill any invader, because we're made up of our cells. So truly, the healthy, a healthy microbiome is the key to a healthy immune system. A healthy gut is gonna be a healthy immune system, and that will always be true. That will withstand the steps of time. If you are not focusing on optimizing your gut health, you guys, what are you even doing with your life? So I'm I'm to someone who's been on antibiotics already this year. I hate taking them, but I had to due to infection that I had in my ear. I talked about that, like I said, on the antibiotic podcast episode. And I am doing a lot right now to rehab my gut and to repopulate all of that amazing good bacteria. I'm eating sauerkraut, I'm having kefir, I'm taking tons of different probiotics, I'm making sure I'm eating as much real food as possible so that I can optimize my gut health with awesome, awesome nutrients. So the last thing I want to talk about is my five takeaways or to-dos that you can do now. Okay, so you might want to consider writing this down, just make a mental note. First thing is I want you always eating in a parasympathetic state. What does that mean? Don't be eating while you're driving. Don't be eating while you're in a meeting. Don't be eating while you're stressed out. Don't be eating while you're not thinking about it. Don't be eating while you're in a conference call. Certainly don't be eating while you're walking, but really try to sit down and have a ceremonial meal time where you're like, You might even consider putting your hand on your heart. You might consider putting your hand on your digestion. You might consider just getting yourself as relaxed as possible, sitting down. You might put your hands over your food. You might bless your food. Get your body in as calm of a state as you can before you eat. That is tip number one. Tip number two, chew your food 25 to 30 times before you swallow. We want that food to be broken down as much as possible. Three, I want you to start every morning with water, a big thing of water, with I recommend the juice of one lemon and a scoop of Redmond's Relight Electrolytes. And I will put a link underneath this video for Redmond's Relight Electrolytes. I talk about those a lot. I consume three or four scoops of those a day, depending on the day and how much I sweat, but those are excellent for your body. Four, avoid processed foods that irritate your digestion because they're not supporting your digestive health. And then five, if you need to, if you feel like your digestion is a mess and you don't have enough stomach acid and you feel super bloated after you eat, you're gassy after you eat, you can't figure this out, you might need to supplement with some sort of high quality hydrochloric acid that's going to give your stomach more stomach. Acid to help you break down your food. You may need that for a period of time because your body isn't good at doing it on its own. So those are my top five takeaways. And then the last thing I will say before I leave you here is keep in mind that I offer my 14-day radiant reset where I go a lot deeper into all of these different concepts. So we will put a link below this video. Again, I run that quarterly. So that's typically in January, April, July, and October. And I would love to have you join us for that two-week reset, which is excellent for optimizing your gut health. And if you enjoyed this video, I would love that if you would like it, share it with a friend if it was useful to you. I know we got a little nerdy in the science, but hopefully it was helpful. And I will see you on the next episode. Feel free to suggest any other podcast topic episodes that you want below this video. And I can't wait to see you again next week. Bye bye.