Your Gut Health Runs The Show

Your hormones might not be the problem. Your gut might be running the whole show. If you’ve been told your labs look fine but you’re dealing with bloating, constipation, reflux, fatigue, anxiety, brain fog, weight gain, or cycle changes, I want you to hear this clearly: gut health is upstream of hormone balance, thyroid function, nutrient absorption, inflammation, and mood regulation. 

I’m Dr. Jordan Trapp, and I’m opening this launch series by laying a clean foundation for what “gut health” actually means. We break it into five practical pillars I use in practice: the gut microbiome (including the estrobolome and estrogen metabolism), gut motility (why going every 3 to 5 days is common but not normal), digestion (low stomach acid, enzymes, bile, and why heartburn can be misleading), the gut barrier (leaky gut and immune activation), and the gut brain connection through the vagus nerve and the enteric nervous system. If you want functional medicine clarity without fluff, this is where to start. 

We also walk through a real patient story where classic perimenopause-style symptoms were driven by constipation, dysbiosis, inflammation, and poor estrogen clearance and how a focused gut protocol changed her cycles, energy, and labs. You’ll leave with five simple steps you can start this week, plus a strong warning about trying to fix complex gut issues with random supplements and trendy probiotics. 

If you’re ready to dig deeper, listen now, share this with a friend who’s “fine on paper,” and subscribe so you don’t miss the digestive symptom deep dive next. After you listen, leave a review and tell me what symptom you want help connecting back to gut health.

Thanks for tuning in. If this episode hit home, share it with a friend who needs to hear it.

Ready to take the next step in your health? Book a free 15-minute consult: https://calendly.com/admin-unshakeablewellness/15min

Follow along on my socials: 
Instagram: @jordan.trappp.nmd 
TikTok @jordantrapp.nmd

Ready to take the next step in your health? Book a free 15-minute consult: https://calendly.com/admin-unshakeablewellness/15min

Follow along on my socials:
Instagram: @jordan.trappp.nmd
TikTok @jordantrapp.nmd

Transcript

Welcome And Series Roadmap

SPEAKER_00 0:03

If you are ready to feel better in your body and in your life, you are in the right place. I am Dr. Jordan Trapp. Welcome to Unshakable and Unfiltered. Hello everyone! You asked and I have delivered. Welcome to our new podcast. This is episode one of a three-part launch series on gut health and hormones. Shocking, I know. Jordan talking about gut health and hormones. Today I'm going to be laying the foundation of a gut health and what that means. Next episode, we are going to dive deep into some digestive symptoms that I see regularly. And in episode three, we will be looking into hormones. Let's jump

Why Gut Health Comes First

SPEAKER_00 0:43

into it. I tell you guys this all of the time, but the gut is the foundation to your overall health. If you are working on your hormones, your thyroid health, your skin, your mood, and no one has looked at your gut, I need to tell you something. You are missing the entire foundation. I have seen this in my practice over and over. A woman will come in with hormonal symptoms, thyroid issues, can't lose weight, anxiety, depression, mental health concerns, and they have looked at all of their blood work. They run everything and they are just at a loss. The thing that actually moves the needle for them and the thing that changes their life is taking a venture into their gut health. So today I'm going to talk about why that is, why your gut is actually running the show, whether you realize or not, and what you can actually do about it. I started this podcast with gut health on purpose because if I could only teach one thing to every woman who's walked through my door, it would be this. Your gut is upstream of absolutely everything in your health. I know that sounds very dramatic, but I want you to think about it this way. Every hormone you produce, every neurotransmitter that regulates your mood, all the nutrients you absorb, every immune signal your body sends out is all either made in, regulated by, or dependent on your gut. When your gut is not functioning well, your body cannot make hormones properly. It cannot clear your hormones properly. It can't convert your thyroid hormones, it's not going to absorb your iron, your Bs, your D's, your MAGs, and it's certainly not going to regulate your nervous system or keep your inflammation down. So when someone comes to me and says, I have tried absolutely everything for my hormones and nothing is working, the first question I ask is, What is going on with your gut? If you have ever seen me or done a 15-minute consult with me, within three minutes of meeting me, typically I say, So what's your gut health look like? Because nine out of ten times there is some sort of answer in there.

Defining Gut Health Clearly

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Something I've learned along the way, people don't necessarily know what gut health means. This term gets thrown around a lot on social media, and it can mean absolutely everything or it can mean nothing. So I wanted to talk about what I mean when I say gut health. When I use this term, I am talking about five specific pillars.

Pillar 1 Microbiome And Estrogen

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Pillar number one is going to be the gut microbiome. You have trillions of bacteria, fungi, and other organisms that hang out in your gut and they are supposed to be there. They help you digest food, they produce vitamins, they regulate your immune system. And as I've said time and time again, they help to metabolize your hormones. There is a whole subset of gut bacteria called your estrobilome that process estrogen. That is actually one of my favorite words that I have ever learned: estrobilome. It just flows off the tongue so nicely. When the ecosystem in your gut is off, when you have too much of the wrong bacteria, too little of the right bacteria, candida, fungi, parasite, your hormones and your overall health are going to

Pillar 2 Motility And Constipation

SPEAKER_00 3:53

feel it. Pillar number two, we have your gut motility. This is how fast things move through your digestive tract. I cannot tell you how many times I have had to tell patients that having a bowel movement every three to five days is not normal. It is very common, but it is not normal. If things are moving too slowly, you get constipation, bloating, and then we can get estrogen dominance because you are quite literally reabsorbing hormones that were meant to get out of your system via your bowels. On the other side of that, if things are moving too quickly, if you have loose stools, diarrhea, have a bowel movement, as soon as you eat, you are not absorbing your nutrients properly. This can show up as fatigue, hair loss, brain fog. In labs, we're gonna see low micronutrients across the board. Motility is a huge deal and it is almost always impacted by your stress levels, your thyroid health, and your nervous system regulation. Pillar number three, digestion.

Pillar 3 Digestion And Low Acid

SPEAKER_00 4:52

And no, this is not the same as motility. This is whether you are actually breaking your food down. Are we making enough stomach acid? Are your digestive enzymes working? Are you making enough digestive enzymes? Is your gallbladder contributing enough bile? Most people I see are running on low stomach acid, which sounds counterintuitive because everyone's taught that acid is the problem, heartburn is an issue, but low stomach acid is why you tend to feel heavy after meals, why you're burping a lot, why you get bloated after eating, why you're reacting to foods that you never use to bother you.

Pillar 4 Gut Barrier And Immunity

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Pillar number four, the gut barrier. Leaky gut gets thrown around quite often, and it is a real thing. Your gut line is supposed to be what we call selectively permeable. This means it lets certain things through and keeps everything else out. When that gut barrier gets damaged, particles that should not be entering your bloodstream via your gut, or vice versa start getting in. This triggers your immune system, your inflammation goes up, and this is gonna show up as food sensitivities, skin issues, joint pain, fatigue, brain fog, and a lot of autoimmunity. Huge link clinically between autoimmune conditions and your gut barrier.

Pillar 5 Nervous System Gut Link

SPEAKER_00 6:07

And pillar number five, your nervous system. Not a lot of people know this, but your gut has its own nervous system. It is called the enteric nervous system and it has more neurons than your spinal cord. There is constant communication between your gut and your brain via something called the vagus nerve. This is why stress is going to tank your digestion. I say it time and time again, but I cannot out-supplement a dysregulated nervous system. If you are living in fight or flight mode, your gut is not going to function properly, period. So those are my big five: microbiome, motility, digestion, barrier function, and the nervous system gut connection. When I am working with the patient on their gut health, these are the five things that I am

Patient Story Hormones Or Gut

SPEAKER_00 6:52

looking at. Let's yap about a patient real quick. I will call her Megan. 38-year-old female came to me convinced she was in perimenopause and that she needed hormones. And her symptoms did make sense for that. She was gaining weight in her midsection, her cycles were becoming irregular, she was exhausted, had bad PMS, mood was all over the place, and she had new onset anxiety. Yes, that does sound exactly like perimenopause, and I am not saying that she was not in perimenopause, but after reviewing her labs, it was very obvious to me that this was not really a hormone issue we were dealing with. There was something causing an imbalance between her estrogen and progesterone. When I sat down with her, I asked about her digestion, and she said, Oh, I have always been constipated. I've always had stomach issues. That's just my normal. You guys, it is not normal. Even if it's your normal, it is not normal. She was bloated daily, had one bowel movement every four to five days, was reacting to food, she never reacted to burping, heartburn, the whole shebang. Her doctor had put her on a PPI for her acid reflux, and she was on it for the last three years. Basically lived off Tums as well. After some convincing, we did a GI map. She didn't quite understand why I was looking at her gut when hormones were her issue, even though I explain this every day. What I found was a very significant dysbiosis, and what she told me at that time was she was actually on long-term antibiotics for about five years. She had low beneficial bacteria, elevated markers of inflammation, leaky gut, and her estrogen was not clearing properly because her gut was not moving it out. I didn't start with her hormones, I did start with her gut. Six weeks into her gut protocol, her bloating was gone. Three months in, her cycles became regular again, her energy came back and her weight had started to shift. By month six, I actually didn't have to do too much with her hormones, to be honest, which was kind of shocking to me because I did expect this to be a hormone case post-gut health. However, when I ran her labs, her estrogen levels had gone down significantly. Her progesterone levels were right where we wanted them to be in her luteal phase, and she was feeling so much better, so I did not intervene. This is exactly what I mean when I say your gut is running the show. We didn't have a hormone problem, we did have a gut problem that was showing up as a hormone imbalance. So, what can we actually

Five Steps To Start This Week

SPEAKER_00 9:20

do about this? I don't want you to get to the end of these episodes and just feel overwhelmed with education. I want you to have something to actually do. So here are five things we can start this week. Number one is going to be eat enough protein and eat it first. Unless you have never seen my Instagram, my TikTok, or been a patient of mine, you've probably heard me say this. Protein is going to signal to your stomach to make stomach acid, which starts the whole digestive cascade. Most women and men, honestly, that I run into are under-eating and severely under-eating protein. And then their digestion starts to suffer from it. Number two, slow down when you eat. And I know this sounds so simple, but if you are rushing through your meal, eating while you're working, eating while you're scrolling, your nervous system is still in its sympathetic state. And when we are in fight or flight mode, digestion can't happen. If you've ever heard the phrase rest and digest, this is where it comes from. Your body needs to be in its parasympathetic to digest food properly. How can we help this? Take five deep breaths before you eat. Sit down, don't be on your phone, don't be reading your books, chew your food thoroughly. This alone can make a huge difference for your digestion. Number three, pay attention to your bowel habits. You should be going at least once a day, ideally, one to two times a day. It should be formed, easy to pass, you should feel completely empty when you are done, and you should have no undigested food in there. If there is anything else happening with your bowels, we need to talk. Number four, support your vagus nerve. This is the nervous system piece. Things like humming, gargling, a quick splash of cold water on your face, breath work, being outside, meditating, journaling. All of these things sound so woo-woo, and I am not a woo-woo naturopath. However, all of these are backed by research and they do work. Number five, and I cannot say this loud enough, stop trying to fix your gut with random supplements from TikTok. Or Target or Costco. I don't care where you're getting your random supplement from, stop. I say this with love. A random probiotic is not going to fix a complex gut issue. If you have had symptoms for years, if you've been on antibiotics a million times, if you've been on birth control, yes, birth control can affect your gut. If we have chronic stress, you likely need actual testing and an actual protocol, not a yes. Here is what I would like you to take away from

Key Takeaways And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 11:54

this episode. If you have been chasing your hormones, your thyroid, your energy, your mood, and you have not looked at your gut, please do. It is almost always part of the picture, and sometimes, like in Megan's case, it is in fact the whole picture. I want to say this too. You are someone who has been told your labs are normal, you're fine, it's just stress, but you know in your soul that something is off, listen, listen to your body. You're not crazy, you're not dramatic, you are paying attention to the body that you live in, and you deserve a provider who's going to pay attention to. If today hit home for you and you want to work with me, or you just want to have a conversation and see if what I do is for you, I offer a free 15-minute consult. That link is in the show notes. We can chat about your symptoms, what you've already tried, and whether functional medicine might be the missing piece for you. Next episode, we are going to deep dive into your digestive symptoms. Bloating, constipation, reflux, food reactions, what each one usually means and what we can actually do about it. If you want that, make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever you are listening. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening, and thank you for caring enough about your own body to dig deeper. I will see you in the next episode. Bye.