“The microbiome world is moving from supplementation towards ecosystem restoration.” - Danielle Arnold

For a long time, the functional medicine approach to gut health focused on getting rid of what shouldn’t be there. It was all about finding the overgrowth, using antimicrobials, adding probiotics, and rebuilding. Those tools are still useful, but our understanding of the microbiome has become much more sophisticated. Now, we can think about restoring the gut’s ecosystem, including the keystone species that help create an environment where beneficial bacteria can thrive, and opportunistic bacteria have a much harder time taking over.

With the complex clients we see as women’s health practitioners, this shift becomes especially important. Someone with endometriosis, histamine intolerance, MCAS, long COVID, metabolic dysfunction, or significant digestive symptoms may not be able to jump straight into eating 45 grams of fiber a day. Sometimes we have to work in a very specific order, supporting digestion, reducing overgrowth, rebuilding beneficial species, and then gradually giving those microbes the fibers and polyphenols they need. The goal is not simply a better stool test. It’s a more resilient gut ecosystem that can better support the immune system, nervous system, hormone health, and the rest of the body.

In today’s episode, I’m joined by Dr. Oscar Coetzee and Danielle Arnold, CNS, from Designs for Health for a wonderfully nerdy conversation about what we now know about rebuilding the gut microbiome. We talk about new research on keystone species like Akkermansia, Faecalibacterium, and Roseburia, how these microbes work together, when antimicrobials may still be useful, why the order of treatment matters for sensitive clients, histamine and hormone health, H. pylori, digestive function, fiber and polyphenols, stool testing, how better gut microbiome support can become part of our clinical thinking, and more.

Enjoy the episode, and let's innovate and integrate together!

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Learn more or watch the video version of this conversation at https://integrativewomenshealthinstitute.com/how-to-rebuild-a-healthy-gut-microbiome-with-dr-oscar-coetzee-and-danielle-arnold/.

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