Many of the women I see in my practice are dealing with gut issues that connect directly to their hormones, and this week I finally got to dig into all of it with someone who truly lives at that intersection.

Dr. Kumkum Patel is a board certified gastroenterologist who did a subfellowship in neurogastroenterology and motility and now runs her own private practice focused on IBS and the gut brain connection. Before she was a doctor she was a patient, and her personal journey through infertility, postpartum depression, and pelvic floor dysfunction as a first year fellow is what shaped everything about how she practices today.

We start with the gut brain connection, what the enteric nervous system actually is, why the gut is sometimes called the second brain, and how 70 to 80% of our happy hormones are made right there in the gut. From there we get into how stress, whether from childhood trauma, a stressful job, or the hormonal chaos of perimenopause, disrupts that entire system and shows up as bloating, constipation, diarrhea, and IBS.

We talk about the estrobiome, the specific gut bacteria responsible for regulating estrogen, and what happens when that balance is off. We cover why perimenopause causes constipation from three different directions at once, why leaky gut is a real phenomenon even if the wellness industry has run away with the term, and what actually works when it comes to treating IBS.

We also had a lot of fun with a rapid fire myth busting round at the end covering everything from gut cleanses to probiotics to how often you should actually be pooping.

This is the gut health conversation midlife women have been waiting for.

Highlights:

• 70 to 80% of your serotonin is made in your gut, not your brain.
• The gut is a self cleaning organ you do not need a cleanse.
• Perimenopause affects your gut from three directions at once.
• Normal bowel movements ranges from 3 times a day to 3 times a week
• Probiotics are all about knowing what strain is in them.
• Leaky gut is real, even if the wellness industry has run away with it.
• Childhood trauma can show up decades later as IBS or chronic constipation.

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