(Tom: I received this email and thought it sounded like an interesting and potentially very workable approach to improving health.)
In recent years, scientific research has begun to reveal how bio-individuality can influence which foods may help or harm an individual; whether a person is more likely to thrive on a mostly plant-based diet or the opposite; whether a ketogenic diet is likely to work or not work for an individual; which detoxification pathways need more support in one person versus another, and even which gut bacteria are likely to thrive in one person versus another.
The Bio-Individual Blueprint system helps people implement the emerging science of bio-individuality to customize nutrition, lifestyle, and other factors to overcome common roadblocks to optimal energy, gut health, detoxification, hormones, healing capacity, body composition, and mood.
Dysbiosis, the Liver, and the Brain
Arguably the most common cause of liver congestion and poor detoxification is gut dysbiosis (imbalance in the species of the intestinal microbiome).
Gut dysbiosis interferes with liver health and detoxification via two main mechanisms:
Dysbiosis often result in higher bacterial production of beta glucoronidase, an enzyme that removes the glucuronic acid that the liver attached to a toxin in phase II of the detoxification process. Once the glucuonic acid has been removed, the toxin is more easily re-absorbed from the gut into the body via entero-hepatic (re)circulation, sending the toxin right back to the liver.
Dysbiosis often results in increased production of a type of highly inflammatory bacterial endotoxin referred to as lipopollysaccharide (LSP) while also increasing the permeability of the intestinal lining, thereby allowing more LPS into the body. LPS causes inflammation in the liver that inhibits phase II detoxification and the transport of bile salts and conjugated toxins (from phase II) into the bile duct system for excretion.
This big one-two punch knocks out both detoxification and digestion, setting up the body to develop even worse dysbiosis.
This is because bile is basically a “detergent”, and when bile flow is reduced, the small intestine doesn’t get cleansed of food residues and microbes that are not supposed to inhabit the small intestine at high levels.
Low bile flow therefore contributes to the development of small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) and/or small intestinal fungal overgrowth (SIFO).
And when phase II detoxification is impaired, not only does the body accumulate toxins like heavy metals, pesticides, and mold toxins, but it also can’t get rid of hormone metabolites like the “bad” versions of estrogen, leading to estrogen dominance, which increases the risk of cancer in both men and women.
And as toxins and bile salts back up in the liver they also back up into the blood, causing inflammation and dysfuction in all parts of the body, especially the most vulnerable and reactive parts like the endothelials cells of the circulatory system (think heart disease), the brain (think Azheimer’s Disease), and immune cells (think autoimmune disease, cancer, and vulnerability to infection by viruses, parasites, and other pathogens).
So this combination of dysbiosis, LPS, inflammation, and impaired detoxification is one of the main drivers of most disease processes and early stage symptoms like food sensitiivities, fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, and depression.
The challenge is that reversing dysbiosis generally involves more than changing the diet, taking probiotics, and/or doing a colon cleanse.
A more complete “top-to-bottom” approach is usually required, and this is covered in the Bio-Individual Blueprint program. To learn more about the program, do any of the following:
Join the waiting list to be notified when it launches: https://go.eat4earth.org/bb-notification-list-optin/
Complete this questionnaire: https://go.eat4earth.org/thanks-for-letting-us-know-survey/
(Please note that this program does not diagnose, treat, or prevent any disease. In the program you learn a comprehensive, sequential, bio-individual approach to supporting the foundational processes of healthy biological function. Also note that individualized recommendations from me may not be available in certain states and countries.)