Christine Rosche is a board-certified nutrition specialist and biofeedback therapist with 25 years’ experience in nutrition and healthcare field. Christine specializes in functional testing and digestive issues and has developed and taught courses at Stanford University. Currently, she is a visiting professor at Stanford University Medical Center focusing on the impact of nutrition on the microbiome. She is an author of two books and since the 1980s has been running her own Digestive Health Center in Palo Alto.
Could you please tell us a bit more about your experience and your interest in the microbiome field?
Dr. Rosche: I found that in most of the patients that we had over the years had heart disease, diabetes or weight management issues, in which the microbiome had a major impact. So when I worked at Stanford Heart Surgery Department for five years, we found that every single person had to have repeat surgery, if they were not paying attention to the impact of the foods they ate. So the reason I'm doing this today is because I've worked with many different disciplines at Stanford and in my practice, in every one of them, the microbiome played a key role in health.
There's currently a lot of focus on the microbiome, both in the media and also on Dr. Google.
But there seems to be still a lot of difficulties to test the microbiome and precision of those tests today? How effective is the mapping of the microbiome?
Dr. Rosche: I think things have changed dramatically in the last few years. What's so exciting is that we have had testing over many years, but in the last few years, it has improved significantly now with DNA testing, as opposed to just macroscopic testing through the microscope. So we have now developed the testing to a level that is completely state-of-the-art, evolutionary, such as polymerase chain reaction testing (PCR) and DNA testing. So it's extremely accurate at this time with all the methodology that's possible. So the last few years have been a revolution in the ability to test the microbiome.
Our main focus is to understand what influences healthy longevity. What is the correlation between a healthy microbiome, healthy longevity, aging in general and age-related diseases?
Dr. Rosche: There's a very strong correlation. The people living in the Blue Zones, which all of you know about, there is the research all shows that they have a very diverse microbiome, which means many different species, hundreds of billions of species that inhabit the microbiome throughout the body, not just in the digestive system. And it's very clear that those cultures all include foods that stimulate a diversity of various species of bacteria, and also the very foods that they eat, such as cultured sauerkraut, kimchi, root vegetables, help them to naturally eliminate the pathogenic bacteria. So the Blue Zones have a lot fewer pathogenic bacteria than in Western culture, because of the fast food genetically modified pesticide sprayed diet, those kinds of foods actually are stimulating the bad pathogenic bacteria from growing, which in the research studies is linked with degenerative disease. So there's a lot of evidence, for example, that Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, all of these autoimmune disorders that are now coming up as far as the United States is concerned as an epidemic, including Hashimoto thyroiditis, all of them had gut permeability issues related to the Western way of life, including stress, pollution, the water being so polluted and foods. But all the countries with the highest longevity, have shown that their diet is vastly different. So they're eating foods that really support the microbiome to be diverse and very healthy.
The last few years have been a revolution in the ability to test the microbiome.
There are a lot of recommendations that we should be eating local food, but as you mentioned, in some of your talks, that there's quite a difference in terms of quality of products and foods that are available in different parts of the world. You have experienced both in the U.S. and Europe, do you see much difference in the quality of food available?
Dr. Rosche: I see a major difference between the European countries, especially food that is made using biodynamic farming, and that's made without pesticides and herbicides. Studies in the U.S. showed that the nutritional quality of food that is not organic is much lower. So people are always concerned in the U.S., and ask am I spending too much on organic? It's actually that you pay much more for nonorganic food because your nutrient quality goes down so much for what you're paying. There are also pesticides in the food that affect the permeability of the digestive system and can lead to other immune diseases. Then most foods that are not organically grown are genetically modified in the U.S. So then we have permeability and inflammatory issues. And we all know that inflammation is the root cause of aging and degeneration. So all foods grown using GMO and pesticides lead to inflammation in the gut.
What is the connection between our guts and our brain? In some of your publications, you mentioned that there is even a stronger connection between our gut and other parts of our body?
Dr. Rosche: Yes, the gut-brain connection has now been researched very well and I think it's one of the most important things when people have permeability in the gut. And it is said that a leaky gut is a leaky brain because there are a lot of bacterial species that we need to have a healthy brain. But what I mainly want to point out is that fatigue, depression or constipation are often linked with anxiety, depression and brain fog. I've worked with a lot of people who have dementia, early-stage Alzheimer's, attention deficit disorder (ADD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and in all of them, when we tested their microbiome, it had a significantly altered composition. In other words, they had bacteria in the gut that was altering the gut and their brain. So we know there's a strong correlation and that people who have brain disorders always have a disordered or inflamed gut as well.
It is said that a leaky gut is a leaky brain because there are a lot of bacterial species that we need to have a healthy brain.
Are there any therapies at the moment that are available to support this?
Dr. Rosche: Yes, you can do a lot by changing how you eat. So the number one thing is to go bio. In the U.S. we call it certified organic, in Europe it's biodynamic. By purchasing and growing organic food we're nourishing the body and the microbiome is getting nutrition. You can do a lot by drinking water that has no chlorine in it. And that's not the tap water because in most cities it's also affecting the brain by stimulating inflammation from all the chemicals. And most importantly, the spraying of pesticides in the community and the gardens with Roundup, which in the United States has been shown to impair the shikimate pathway. It has been proven in all the medical literature that Roundup spray impairs the body's ability to make neurotransmitters that prevent ADD, ADHD, depression, anxiety, Alzheimer’s, so your neurotransmitter production and absorption of nutrients are very limited. Also, your inflammation goes up quite a bit with the spraying and where I live in Palo Alto, every school ground and every resident is sprayed with it.
What is the impact of stress and lack of sleep on our microbiome?
Dr. Rosche: Very significant - stress is a key factor. Even if you eat well, if you have very high-stress level, it can cause some permeability of the intestines and affect the number and diversity of microbes in your microbiome. So that's why I teach biofeedback in my practice, and I do the work with the Vagas nerve. In some of the videos that are online, I speak about how to activate the Vagas nerve through breathing before having a meal, how to do some balanced breathing and work on controlling stress, because stress leads to high inflammation.
It seems that our microbiome is actually influencing every part of our body. What is influencing our microbiome is also everything around us. How important is the local food and eating actually for our healthy microbiome?
Dr. Rosche: Very important. So ideally, local food, meaning grown in your community, means that it's naturally produced. It's not transported somewhere, because when you have local food, they have more nutrients, and the microbiome responds to better nutrition. So the purpose is to increase the nutrient availability and absorption with local food that is grown in a way and doesn't have any GMO, pesticides or herbicides sprayed.
But as natural as possible.
Dr. Rosche: That’s right, and even in the U.S., we do not recommend any milk products, because they're all given hormones, antibiotics, and also, I don't recommend milk for anyone because it's in highly inflammatory food at any age.
And how does a healthy gut affect our hormones, and as a result, our fertility, which is one of the most alarming problems of our times?
Dr. Rosche: If the bacteria is altered, or if you have an overgrowth of certain bacteria, that will affect the amount and types of hormones. So your ability to have a balanced hormone system is dependent on the microbiome being in balance.
What is the connection between obesity and the microbiome?
Dr. Rosche: Research has shown, which is fascinating, that 50 percent of children now have antibiotics in the United States, and over half the children that got them very early on, have become obese from the overuse of antibiotics. So there's a correlation between antibiotic use in children, leaky gut and overweight. So we have a national fast food epidemic. But the key is that when you transplant bacteria. A study showed that when bad bacteria, such as found in human GMO food, was transplanted from obese mice into mice with normal weight, they immediately started gaining weight regardless of what they ate. So people who are very overweight have bacterial imbalances and a microbiome that stimulates more and more weight gain. That's why in our practice, I customize the strains of probiotics based on their gut test and then give them things that will help them lose weight. So specific species of bacteria.
Even if you eat well, if you have very high-stress level, it can cause some permeability of the intestines and affect the number and diversity of microbes in your microbiome.
How effective are the gut transplants today?
Dr. Rosche: In the U.S., mostly, they're done for people who have C. difficile (Clostridioides difficile), which is a very serious bacterial condition in which they're almost dying. So transplant is highly effective if it's done under the right conditions, that donor is usually a family member of the patient. And within 10 days to two weeks, people with constant diarrhea who are dying were completely normal. The bacteria from the donor from the husband or the child took over. And within a month, these people had no more issues with their illnesses, it's highly effective.
This is a more radical solution, but there's a lot we can do in the meantime, apart from eating healthy food and more organic food. What kind of probiotics should we be taking? What would you recommend?
Dr. Rosche: What's important is that they're customized. In our tests you actually do a stool sample in your home, then you send it to a lab and two weeks later, you get the results. The probiotics are customized depending on which species you're missing, overgrowing or undergrowng. So for each person that I work with, I customize a probiotic formula for them, but always ones that are tested to make sure what's in the box is actually there. So for example, if you go to a health food store, you buy it on the shelf, it says it has 2 billion, there's nothing that most of the studies show that it was there was nothing in the bottle exactly. So it does need to be independent, tested and kept under certain conditions. Some strains need to be refrigerated, some not. But it has to be tested and to usually 25, 50, hundreds of billion rather than just a few billion CFUs (colony forming units). So we have people who've done many probiotics that did not take hold in their gut, they just didn't produce any results.
How long does it take to bring your microbiome to, let's say a perfect state after you have taken antibiotics?
Dr. Rosche: It depends on the lifestyle - what a person eats, what they think, what their stress level is. So it's hard to say, but the average is six months to a year after one 10-day course of antibiotics.
and if you take a number of them?
Dr. Rosche: It can take years to rebuild. All pharmaceuticals affect the permeability, which then again leads to much higher inflammation and antibodies. So if you have somebody who's taking antibiotics several times in a row or several times a year, their gut is permeable in addition to the bacteria being deficient. So then you have a double edge because you have two different things that lead to chronic disease or degeneration.
You mentioned in one of your presentations, that there is also a microbiome in women's breast.
Dr. Rosche: Yes, what is really exciting about this is I was asked to speak about the latest research that affects women, affects everyone. The breast has its own mini-microbiome and in unco (University of Northern Colorado ) target 2017, a very recent publication, it showed that in patients with breast cancer, when testing their stool and urine, they all had this pathogenic bacteria in the gut that then migrated to the breast tissue. So it wasn't just in the gut, it showed that the breast tissue contained these bad bacteria and that patients who did not have breast cancer had different healthy bacteria. And it's also correct that all cancer patients at some point before the cancer forms have a disordered microbiome, and that also includes disorder in their skin in their nose, in every organ in the body. So what was exciting about the Cleveland Clinic study is that the microbiome is not just in the gut, the microbiome is in the breast tissue, in all the reproductive organs, in every organ in the body, the mouth and nose, the throat, all the different areas – and they are interconnected.
It seems that there is still a lot to be learned about our microbiome. If somebody would like to learn more about the subject, are there any books that you would like to recommend?
Dr. Rosche: What I recommend is that people go to my website and look at the research at the Digestive Health Center , where we have research articles and books. There we have a list of the most important U.S.-based and international books. If you go there, and you do go to resources, I have listed the most important books at different levels and types.
Thank you very much for today's interview, and we look forward to learning more about the microbiome studies.
