David Stouder: Welcome to the Humanized Podcast. It’s all about personalizing your health. I’m your host, Dave Stouder. Now, our topic today is an important one. It’s called Early Warning Signs from Your Gut. And we want to talk about this because you know, it’s so much easier to if your car starts to go in the rumble strip, just move the steering wheel a little bit in the right direction. If you get off in the ditch, it’s a little more complicated. And we’re gonna be talking with nurse practitioner and frequent guest, Julie Hortman. Now, before I introduce Julie, I wanna remind everyone that you can subscribe and you can get all of our podcasts here. For free right here. And by the way, if you’ve never looked at this, not only can you get the videos, you can get the audio and transcriptions of what we’re doing here. So it makes it easy for you to get any way that you want. And we’d like to thank our lead sponsor, Village Green, for making all of that possible.

Now I’m gonna tell you a little bit about Julie before we bring her on. Julie Hartman is a nurse practitioner with over 25 years of experience, she’s passionate about educating others on the power of food and natural medicine to heal the body. Her clinical practice primarily focuses on GI health, where she utilizes specialty lab testing to help clients get to the root cause of their symptoms. And she creates tailored protocols and empowers individuals with the necessary tools to live a healthy and vibrant life. Julie, welcome to the podcast.

Julie Hortman: Thank you for having me. Always excited to be here.

David Stouder: Yes. And you know, before we get started, you can work remotely with people, right?

Julie Hortman: Yes.

David Stouder: Okay. So, we will let you know how you can get in touch with Julie before this podcast ends, if you would like to work with her. But, so let me ask you a question.

You know, I think you would confirm that gut issues in America are sort of almost epidemic like you almost don’t meet anybody over 30 that doesn’t have something. However, many people experience minor, you know, a little constipation, a little bloating, a little this, a little that, and it’s almost like we, I think we’d be trained by the medical profession to just like not worry about something till it breaks.

Now are these just minor things we should expect and not worry about it, or is it a sign something deeper is going on?

Julie Hortman: Yeah, great question. Definitely signs that you wanna pay attention to, right? This is sort of like, you know, your car light, engine light coming on in your car, right? It’s letting you know, Hey, something’s going on.

We need to pay attention. We maybe need to go in and have this seen about get a tune up, like whatever, you know, the case is. But yeah, for sure. If you can start to, and I think this is kind of… I see a common theme, because we live in such a busy world and we’re always going, going, going, sometimes we’re not even in tune with our body and what our body is trying to tell us.

So I think, you know, kind of trying to shift your mindset in, okay, I’m gonna really pay attention to my body every single day. And note, you know, what, what symptoms, what signs am I feeling, am I seeing, you know, to kind of, clue us in to maybe where we need to go, so to speak. But yeah, there are some, you know, minor, I would say minor gut symptoms that most people kind of ignore.

And so let’s kind of talk about maybe some of those and what they might be telling us, right? Some of the kind of most common things that I see. In working with patients on their gut health are things like bloating. I mean, that’s such a sort of common, and I often term it like generic symptom because it could mean a lot of different things, right?

But a lot of people experience bloating after meals and kind of just brush it off as, oh, you know, maybe I ate too much, you know, or maybe this, this particular food didn’t agree with me. Now, I would also say that. An occasional episode of bloating after a meal, maybe with more fiber, things like that could be normal, right?

We’re talking, you know, you’re starting to experience these things on a regular basis, then that should be clueing you in. Okay, you know, something’s going on. Because frequent bloating can be things like core digestion, right? Low stomach acid. Enzyme insufficiency, pancreatic enzyme insufficiency, or even bacterial or pathogenic overgrowth.

So, you know, don’t dismiss that for too long anyway. If it starts to, again, happen on a regular basis, that’s should be a clue to you.

David Stouder: So, in other words, minor plus chronic, especially as a strong message, even if it’s a quote, minor symptom. You bloat, everybody blows once in a while, but if you notice it’s more than once in a while, pay more attention.

Julie Hortman: Absolutely, yes. Excessive gas. Sometimes people normalize that as, oh, I just belch a lot. You know, you, you wanna, again, clue into that because often we get this imbalance in our gut, in our microbial balance. So that’s… you may hear it termed dysbiosis. That’s kind of an imbalance of good and bad bacteria, so you know, more bad bacteria.

And these bacteria can cause food in our gut to ferment. And so then we have this excessive gas production. So that can be, again, another kind of minor — we think of it as a minor symptom — but a clue. Now, one that I see really, really often is irregularity in bowel movements. Now, I would say most of the time that is a lack of bowel movements, right?

More constipation than loose stools. I feel like people really dismiss that. Like, well, I hear this a lot. “It’s just normal for me to have a bowel movement every three or four days.” And what I would say to you, if that’s kind of the message you’ve been telling yourself, what you’ve been telling yourself is that is not normal.

We need to be detoxing our body every single day, right? We’re putting things into our body, we’re exposed to things in the environment, lots of toxins that you know, we need to be, again, eliminating, and our bowels are one of our big detox organs. So that’s kind of a big clue that you’re not detoxing that, you know, maybe you have sluggish motility.

You could even have things like thyroid issues, low magnesium, inadequate fiber. I mean, there are lots of reasons, pathogenic overgrowth. There are lots of reasons for constipation, slow bowel movements. But that is, that’s a big one that I think people really, really dismiss as “that’s just how I am” or “that’s just normal for me.”

David Stouder: They say that, you know, I, I read all the time in the books, you know, health begins in the gut and I, I have a feeling you’re not gonna disagree with that statement. And so in a way, if we look at how critical the digestive and eliminative process is to our health, if that’s faltering in any way, it’s only going to lead to something serious.

I mean, it might be five years from now, but it could be next month. But I mean, isn’t that the point that if we notice the car isn’t running very well, you wanna get it tuned up long before something breaks?

Julie Hortman: Absolutely. Absolutely.

David Stouder: Yeah. And so, the message we would like to get across to everybody is not to ignore these quote minor, you know, but chronic symptoms.

Now, it’s clear to me from people who tell me like a lot of your over the counter things and antacids and all this work into the sense that, well, I’m constipated and I take a laxative and I, I have a bowel movement. But, wouldn’t it be… those things don’t fix the problem. Right? And they cover up.

And of course, some of the more prescription things, I think have some pretty serious downsides if taken forever and ever. So it seems to me that a lot of people cover these minor symptoms with, you know, simple over the counter things or in some cases go to the doctor and get serious medications.

Number one: I’d like you to confirm they don’t really fix the issue. And, and some of these things have serious downsides. Like even, even herbal laxatives, natural laxatives should not be used forever and ever. So, how do you start with people? I noticed you do functional testing. So if I come to you with whatever my particular symptoms are, how do you sort of personalize that and, and not just make it like everybody that is constipated needs to do this or everybody with bloating?

So, what’s your approach to helping people work these out? And I know you’d prefer people came and work with you before things got serious.

Julie Hortman: Great question. So just to address one of the first things that you said about, you know, using these over the counter medications. I mean, I think we are, naturally, we want a solution to symptoms that we’re feeling.

You know, we don’t wanna feel bad, right? I mean, that’s, that’s natural. What I would encourage you to think about is, and maybe you do, you know, and, and you take something over the counter because you’re like, look, I’m desperate. I need to get rid of this reflux, or I need to have a bowel movement. I need to take a laxative, or whatever the case may be.

But don’t stop there. I’m not saying that those things don’t work. They certainly work. But what we want to think about, as you mentioned, is: what are the long-term side effects of doing that? And what we really need to start training our minds to think is, why is this happening to me? Not let me put a bandaid on this and let me just get rid of this symptom.

If it’s something that is reoccurring, we really need to be thinking why, what’s the underlying cause and, as you mentioned, that’s, that’s what I primarily do is look at root cause because we can, we can even use healthy bandaids, right? We can use things that help with our symptoms of reflux that are natural, you know, herbal remedies, but that’s still not fixing the underlying problem.

We really want to dive deeper and start to try and figure out: why these things are happening. So, as you mentioned, yes, I do take more of that root cause, functional approach, and I start to look…. This is really individualized, right? And this is really all about personalized medicine, personalized nutrition, which is the way it should be because we are all very bio individual.

You know, one thing, such as a diet, for instance, that might work really well for you and make you feel really great, might not be the exact type of diet and foods that I should be eating. So, you know, everyone’s a little bit different. So I think that’s really important to recognize. And there’s not a one size fits all.

I think we’d love it if there was a one size fits all, which, often, is the conventional medical approach, right? There’s this protocol, okay, you have heartburn or reflux, take this proton pump inhibitor. I mean, there’s no really kind of diving deep as to why is this happening? Or again, taking an individualized, personalized approach.

But, if patients are coming to me…. So generally when I see people they are having GI symptoms, we’re gonna kind of dive deep in. I’m gonna get, you know, lots of history on them to try and kind of, you know, look and see, you know, if there are any patterns, anything that point to, you know, a specific underlying cause.

But we’re also going to start looking at foundational things. And this is something that… look, for listeners, even if you’re not already working with a practitioner, that takes more of a root cause approach. These are things that you can start doing on your own. Start really paying attention, you know, to what you’re eating when these symptoms happen, how much stress are you under? Did you not sleep well? You know, all of these kind of, again, foundational things that you can sort of start to be an investigator too and start to maybe keep a journal and start to try and figure out and connect the dots of, oh, every time I eat this food, this symptom happens.

So, you know, a lot of this you can kind of help figure out on your own, but I really look at lifestyle and nutrition first. We wanna look at things like: what’s the quality of your diet? You know, are you, you know, having all these GI symptoms and you’re really eating an ultra processed diet? You know, you’re eating foods that cause a lot of inflammation, things with a lot of added sugar, drinking a lot of alcohol, you know, things like that. Or, you know, are you eating a really good whole food based diet? Then, okay, you know, maybe, maybe that’s not it. Maybe you kind of dial that area of lifestyle in and you’re doing great with that. You know, then you wanna think about what’s your stress like?

I mean, there’s such a huge connection between gut and the brain, and I promise you, I mean, I have worked with, and this was my case actually years ago, i’ve worked with so many people that they’re doing all the right things. You know, they have a healthy diet, they’re exercising, they’re sleeping, they’re staying hydrated, maybe they’re even taking some good quality supplements, but their stress is out of control. And if that is not managed, you’re not gonna get better. I mean, just bottom line.

David Stouder: Julie, let me ask you, do you notice this — I think sometimes people might be listening to us and they go. “My diet’s good. I mean, I’ve been eating this way for 20 years and I never had this symptom, so it couldn’t be that.” And I don’t think they realize that, yeah, you may be, you know, drinking sodas and coffee and have a lot of stress and not eating the greatest diet and be symptom free for a while. Until you’re not. And I think people sometimes don’t realize that.

So, you know, you’re saying look at your diet and go, oh, it can’t be that. ’cause I’ve eaten this way for 20 years. And, I think people… I was sort of reading this book and it, it sort of chronicled how, I’m not quite old enough, but I think when I was little there were not a lot of processed foods.

They, they were like a little thing here and there, but once the convenience of that became so popular, I think people that are younger don’t even know what, what a good diet is. They’re just used to, even if you go, well, I’m going to eat this processed food that has better ingredients than this other processed food.

My wife and I comment that health food stores are often filled with just snacks. You know, unless you go to the produce case. So I think people need to realize that a lot of the things you mentioned, the poor sleep, the poor hydration, the poor diet, the stress, these are cumulative effects that one day the symptom arises and it is from what you’ve been doing for years with no symptoms.

Julie Hortman: I think you bring up a great point, and it reminds me of, you know, people may have seen this, sort of analogy before of, you know, you have a bucket and you start to fill, you know, the bucket with, a lot of times this analogy is given, with toxins in our body, right? Same thing with poor diet. Over time, you know, things kind of pile up and then it overflows, and then that’s when you start, you’re like, “oh!” Then the, you know, the lights are going off, like, “oh, what’s going on?” So, to your point, I mean, it’s a great point. Just because you’ve always done this doesn’t mean that that is not part of, at least the cause, of what is now kind of spilling over and really, you know, coming out and saying, Hey, hey, hey, something’s wrong.

You know, it’s your body’s way of telling you, pay attention to me, something’s going on.

David Stouder: Well, I was on your website, which is a great website. I know you have, you’ve written, how many books have you written? It’s at least a couple right?

Julie Hortman: I have several eBooks.

David Stouder: Yeah. That people can [read] and I encourage people to do that.

Now, if people wanna work directly with you, and like you said, I totally agree, to me, always have a functional practitioner on your side. So, when you come… There, there’s nothing worse when you’re sort of in a crisis to try to find somebody that you trust that you can relate to. It’s so much better to get that going now.

And, and of course again, if you’re, if you’re noticing your digestive systems talking to you, it’s so much easier in the beginning, usually small, like you say, small changes. Well, and until you wait till you’re really, you know, critically constipated or hardly can eat without reflux, which happens to so many people.

So how do people get in touch with you if they wanna work with you?

Julie Hortman: Yeah, great question. I have a website. It’s called Julie Ann, A-N-N, no e, julieannwellness.com. And then I’m on Instagram and Facebook as Julie Ann Wellness, so pretty easy to remember. If you go onto… you can certainly message me on Instagram or Facebook. If you go onto my website, you’ll see that my email is on there. You can just click to email me as well, and I’d be happy to answer any questions, see if we’re a good fit to work together. I do offer 15 minute, free discovery calls. Just if someone has, you know, more questions and we kind of wanna see again, are we a good fit to work together? Then, I’m happy to do that as well.

David Stouder: I do, I think it’s important, working in a store, working with the public, there’s so many digestive issues and if you start really exploring, like you said, there’s, there’s so much of a gut-brain connection. Your microbiome is so critical that probably every biological process in your body… and the first place you’re likely to get symptoms is the gut.

And, I think that, I don’t see most conventional [doctors], but you know what I tell people? If you go to your GI doctor and you say, I wanna reestablish a healthy digestive system without drugs, can you help me? Even if the physician thinks you need drugs, fine, but if they don’t know the answer to that question, personally, I get somebody else. And it, it’s clear to me, you know, the answer to that question if I come to you and, like you say, sometimes we need you, you don’t wanna walk around having horrible reflux. It’s nice that we have something that can make the fire go away, but it’s not a solution. I really admire what you’re doing and I really encourage anybody listening that’s got minor to major digestive systems, problems rather: Do something about it that gets to the root cause. So, you know, thank you for this. And again, Julie Hortman can be found @julieannwellness. And it’s Ann without the E. A-N-N. And, I’ll also remind you, you can get all… I think we’ve had you on about eight times, Julie, we have a nice little library of input from you on a lot of these, and I, you know, I wanna throw out there this last thing with you, but there’s a lot in the news about our children’s health, and the lack thereof. And all kinds of practitioners are saying they’re seeing all kinds of things in younger kids, from diabetes to obesity, to digestive problems, anxiety. We need to, we need to start our children on a better diet.

Do, do you work with kids as well?

Julie Hortman: I do, I generally work with kids like, not, not really young kids. Usually 12 and up is my scope, 12 and up.

David Stouder: Yeah. Kids that are maybe old enough to get it themselves. Other than that you work with the parents.

Julie Hortman: Yeah. Right. Which is really where it starts, right?

We can model good behavior, you know, diet, exercise, all the foundational things for our kids, and that’s how they learn and grow up to be healthier adults.

David Stouder: Excellent. And we’ll end there. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast. This is such a huge issue. And please everybody, if your digestive system is sending you messages, pay attention and again, you can, I encourage you to go to julieannwellness.com and Julie Ann, thanks for being with us.

Julie Hortman: Thank you so much for having me.