Dr. Judy Morgan 0:00
Welcome to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. Let's get to it.
Dr. Judy Morgan 0:05
Hello, and welcome to this week's broadcast of Naturally Healthy Pets. I'm Dr. Judy Morgan. And my guest today is Dr. Katie Kangas. Katie, thank you so much for agreeing to be on today.
Dr. Katie Kangas
Absolutely. Thank you so much. It's really a pleasure to be here today and really exciting to talk about the topic ahead.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Awesome. So Dr. Katie Kangas owns and operates Integrative Veterinary Care, a private practice in San Diego, California offering holistic and integrative health care options for pets. I'm so happy when I talk to somebody who is actually still in practice. Because there are not that many integrative practitioners out there and it's really difficult to find them.
Dr. Judy Morgan 0:46
So, if you're in the San Diego area, you at least have Dr. Kangas. So she achieved her certified veterinary acupuncture certification at the Chi Institute in 2008. down in Florida, followed by additional training in advanced acupuncture, food therapy, herbal medicine and veterinary orthopedic manipulation, which is a form of chiropractic care. Her areas of special interest include nutrition, gut health, dental health and functional medicine. She has authored several articles published in veterinary journals and pet magazines and shares her passion for pet wellness education by lecturing and presenting all over the world. And so Katie, because she has a special interest in gut health, yay, today has agreed to talk to us about leaky gut syndrome. And the question is, is this the root cause of chronic inflammation and many disease problems in our pets? I think the answer is yes. That's what I thought. So we know that gut health really is kind of the foundation as of everything.
Dr. Judy Morgan 1:58
Because I always say food is the foundation of life, but really the food is what's feeding the gut and the body. So you had a quote from Hippocrates?
Dr. Katie Kangas
Absolutely. The famous quote that? Well, the big the biggest quote from Hippocrates is what you just alluded to, is Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. And Hippocrates has been dubbed the father of medicine, you know, really going back to ancient medical practice. But another very famous quote that came from Hippocrates is all disease starts in the gut. And I love to share with my clients, you know, holistic mindset. Even in Chinese medicine, when we're taught Chinese medicine, we are taught that when a patient presents to you with multiple problems, go to the gut first, if you're not focusing on gut health, nothing else in the body that's out of balance can come into true balance and homeostasis and health. If you're not supporting the gut, first, everything starts from there. And then from a functional medicine standpoint, and I love to explain to people sort of the definition behind functional medicine that I like to use is supporting the body to function optimally, by supporting it with tools that of course start with food, food is the first medicine, but then you can bring in other tools like herbs and homeopathy and things like that. Lifestyle, of course, you know, a healthy lifestyle, but supporting the body to function optimally. So from a functional medicine standpoint, gut health is also number one. And so that's always a good place to start. Now, knowing that that supports health from the foundation, it also makes sense that that's where disease starts to break down the body too. And so let's protect the Let's support the gut to be healthy, and protect the gut from damage so that we don't head into disease and our pets don't head into all these health conditions that are related to it that we can get to.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Exactly. So leaky gut is the term that we hear so often. And I actually want to say that I think that leaky gut is a term that we've all started to hear a lot, really only in like the past five or so years. Yeah, certainly when I was in veterinary school, and you're younger than I am, but when I was in veterinary school, there was no such term as leaky gut. Actually, we didn't talk about the gut at all except for here feed this prescription diet.
Dr. Judy Morgan 4:17
So can you give us a quick lowdown on what leaky gut is? I think that a lot of people are familiar with it, but there may be some people who have never heard that term.
Dr. Katie Kangas
Absolutely. And it is a very common term now, especially with holistic medicine, functional medicine, naturopathic medicine, but it is out there now in conventional medicine for both humans and veterinary and I'm speaking on this coming up at the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association next month and so I did a ton of research over this last year and already knew a lot but now you know, I really delved in and you go to PubMed and do a search and there are 1000s of articles on leaky gut and what it is related to so it is out there.
Dr. Katie Kangas 5:00
the term leaky gut, of course, is a nickname that describes what's called medically gut hyper permeability. So hyper means, you know, above normal. So hyper permeability means that the gut lining is now more permeable than it should be. And that, and I'll relate that to leaky gut. But what we, of course, know is that the gut lining is supposed to be permeable to allow absorption of the nutrients that our body needs to run our body and our cells and be our fuel, and our nutrition. But it is also supposed to have an intelligent, you know, it's an intelligent barrier, an innate intelligence that knows what to allow in, to absorb into our body that we need and what to send out with the bowel movements that we don't want to let into our body. And what happens is when you get inflammation on the inner lining of the gut, which we'll talk about all the various things that do that, but once there's inflammation inside the gut, then, you know, swelling, and inflammation starts to damage those tissues, and then these tight cellular junctions. So that's the innate barrier, is there's tight junctions between all those gazillions of cells that line the gut lining, and those start to open up with the inflammation. And you literally have leakage through this cell wall that's supposed to be the gatekeeper. So once the gatekeeper is compromised, then all these things can rush in across the intestinal wall that we don't want, including toxins and, you know, microbes and, you know, all kinds of unwanted things that are going to cause inflammation internally, systemically in the body.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Exactly. And so that, that chronic inflammation brings about things that we throw words around all the time, arthritis, pancreatitis, allergic dermatitis, autoimmune disease, and we, when you see an animal that has itchy broken out skin, your initial reaction isn't, wow, there must be a problem with his intestines, you're you're looking at and saying, Wow, there's really a problem with the skin. And this is I think, one of the, the huge drawbacks of traditional medicine is that we get, we get a diagnosis of, okay, we've got allergic dermatitis, and we get hyper focused on fixing the skin. But we don't ever get down to that root cause which we got to look at the gut.
Dr. Katie Kangas
Exactly. And I love how you just brought that in, especially the skin discussion. Because as we all know, skin problems are tremendously common in pets, and can be so chronic and so severe and debilitating. So it's really nice for people to understand I love the saying that I like to use is that skin problems are way deeper than skin deep. And literally go to the level of the gut. And I love to put this into context with what you just opened up to opened up the discussion up to is that you have that that gut lining that's supposed to be this tight cellular junctions. And then once it's leaky, and we have leaky gut, right behind the gut barrier, the mucosal lining of the gut is literally 70 to 80% of the immune system, for our pets and ourselves is right behind that gatekeeper. And that immune tissue actually has a name, it's called the GALT, which is GALT, the gut associated lymphoid tissue. And again, 70 to 80% of the immune system, and a large number of the antibodies that are produced in the body are right in that tissue. And so once the gut is leaky, and things are filtering across that gut wall, then it's triggering the immune system. And that's why auto immune, you know, eventually, if that's left unchecked, and unresolved, then we head into the immune system is constantly in overdrive, because it's being bombarded, you know, 24/7 by all this stuff it's not supposed to be confronted with and then the immune system is triggered. And so I like to describe for my clients that, yes, you or your pet could be hypersensitive to things in the environment, either contact allergies or inhaling pollens or molds or something like that. But if your immune system wasn't in overdrive all the time, you wouldn't have these over reactivities and hypersensitivities. And your immune system would be much calmer and less reactive.
Dr. Judy Morgan
exactly. So we want to talk about some of the things that impact gut health. And I want to start with something that I don't think people think about often enough, but it is something that is ubiquitous in our environment in our waterways, and it can be found in every animal, every human. So we're gonna talk about the impact of toxins, particularly glyphosate. We're gonna focus on that one a little bit because that's Roundup and a lot of people are familiar with Roundup,
Dr. Judy Morgan 10:00
a lot of people use Roundup. There was a time in my life when I used Roundup, because it's supposed to be so safe and wonderful. But we know that it's not.
Dr. Katie Kangas
not at all. And this is a topic that's very passionate and near to my teaching core, because I really delved into this and actually gave presentations on this to the American Holistic Veterinary group a few years ago. So I'm well researched and very knowledgeable about glyphosate. And again, that is the main ingredient in Roundup, once the patents were lifted after about 20 years of, of Monsanto having it now it's in more than 750 products that are sold in, you know, this country even. And as you mentioned, it is very ubiquitous, and it's been measured in up to 70% of the rainfall globally. It's, as you mentioned, in waters and rivers, and it's in human breast milk it's in I mean, it's all over our bodies, it is water soluble, which is unfortunate, because that means it can spread everywhere. I mean, the planet is 70% water, we are 70% water. So poof, glyphosate is everywhere, it goes up literally with condensation goes comes back down in the rain. So it is a vicious cycle. And it is one of the biggest damaging components to the gut lining. And it is literally directly causing leaky gut, not to mention people now understand that glyphosate is carcinogenic, it's causing cancer, it's, you know, a lot of other issues. It's actually an antibiotic as well. It's affecting microbes in the soil, it's affecting microbes in our gut. So it's destroying the microbiome, but it's also directly causing leaky gut syndrome. So it's, it's got a lot, a lot of negatives about it.
Dr. Judy Morgan 11:49
Wow. So this is contributing to well, dysbiosis for sure, where the microbiome is just completely messed up. And then we wonder why when we do a test of our animal's microbiome, and it's, it's completely out of whack. Shocking. And, you know, antibiotic resistance is becoming such a huge problem. And so we're just contributing to that. And, and, frankly, unfortunately, because it's in the rainwater, and it's in the waterways, and it's in the soils, and it's in so many plants, a lot of times it's invisible to us, and we have that exposure, and our pets have that exposure, and we don't know it.
Dr. Katie Kangas
exactly. And as it turns out, pets have the highest level of exposure. And we all have high levels if we're not really making big efforts to eat organic and eat clean.
Dr. Katie Kangas 12:42
But you know, humans, of course, have very, very high levels comparatively. And there were actually a study that was done looking at a just random population of people in California, the study was a 20 year study from 1995 to 2015. And it showed a 38 fold increase in that 20 year span of glyphosate in human urine. So that's how much humans have exponentially. And that you know, and that's even already been, I mean, it's years since that study, so there's a lot more, but the unfortunate thing for our pets is because of the types of foods in standard pet foods. There's wonderful organizations that have been testing glyphosate avidly and HRI, Health Research Institute Labs is one of them. And they've done lots of measurements of glyphosate in humans and animals, including dogs, cats, farm animals, horses, and even wildlife. And dogs have the highest levels of glyphosate than any animals or humans ever tested.
Dr. Judy Morgan
which is horrible. And we're gonna take a quick break to hear from our sponsor. And when we come back, we're going to talk about what foods are incriminated and why our dogs have the highest levels of glyphosate.
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Dr. Judy Morgan 15:05
Welcome back. I'm Dr. Judy Morgan. And my guest today is Dr. Katie Kangas. And we are discussing leaky gut. And right now, we have been talking about the effects of glyphosate and other herbicides on the health of our pets as well as us, because they directly damage the gut lining and contribute to antibiotic resistance and dysbiosis, which is disruption of the microbiome. Your microbiome is the good guys that live in our bodies, in our lungs, on our skin, in our guts, they keep the bad guys in check. And so when we wipe out the good guys, guess what those bad guys can take over and cause much bigger problems. So you were just talking about glyphosate levels in the dogs.
Dr. Judy Morgan 15:50
And I don't think he gave the statistic but the dogs have an average of 32 times more glyphosate in their urine compared to humans.
Dr. Katie Kangas
Yep, absolutely. Very, very high levels. And cats have about 16 times more. Horses are right behind dogs, they have 29 times more or sorry. Yeah. So humans have 29 times. Yeah.
Dr. Judy Morgan
And so that doesn't shock me with horses, given the fact that they're fed grains. I mean, they may be on pastures that have been sprayed, but certainly if they're being fed, processed grains, process feeds, they're going to be getting a lot of glyphosate. So which foods are highest in glyphosate?
Dr. Katie Kangas
Exactly? Great question, because then that really displays why we're, you know, reporting these numbers. And just to back up for any horse people. Alfalfa is widely sprayed with glyphosate. Okay, so there's an issue. And then of course, as you mentioned, horses are outside, you know, they're in pastures, that can also be, you know, a lot of it from the environment. Dogs spend a good deal of time outside, of course, and they're, you know, sniffing in the grass, they're rolling in the grass, they have a lot of contact, and we know that they can get it that way, you can inhale it as well. But the types of foods that dogs are eating are saturated with the highest levels of glyphosate. And that is one of the reasons why cats have only 16 times greater than humans, you know, about half of dogs, because most pet cats are indoors either most of the time or all of the time. And secondly, hopefully, cats are eating primarily protein diets as they are true carnivores because dogs can function as omnivore. Unfortunately, the pet food market obviously has shoved a ton of carbs in pet foods for you know dog foods, especially for years. And the types of foods that are the ingredient panels in dog foods are some of the highest levels of glyphosate. And when I say that, what I will give context for everybody is that of course corn and soy, the original GMO crops, genetically modified organisms, were the first crops to be sprayed with glyphosate because they were engineered to be resistant to the glyphosate, so the glyphosate could kill the weeds, but it would not kill those crops. So they were sprayed in the beginning of the season, because they could withstand the glyphosate. Well, after a long time, decade or more of doing couple decades of doing it that way, then all the powers that be were like, Hey, let's start using glyphosate on tons more crops. So now it's actually used as a crop desiccant at the end of the season to dry the crop so that it can be harvested at a very specific timing so the farmers can maximize their yield. So what happens with these non GMO crops that weren't designed to with handle, you know, withstand the glyphosate, they're sprayed at the end of the growing season. So guess what, when your pet or you eat that food, it's got a ton more glyphosate on it than if it was sprayed in the beginning. And it turns out that these non GMO crops that have the highest levels of glyphosate are oats and peas, and chickpeas and lentils. Wheat is in there as well, potatoes. So these, of course, are some of the foods that are in that are included in the highest ratios in a lot of dog foods. And guess what? They're in really high ratios in grain free dog foods. So, you know, grain free, certainly, I mean, dogs don't need grain and you know, don't require grain at all, but I just like people to understand that just because a food is labeled grain free doesn't mean that it's healthier for your dog. Oftentimes, it has more carbohydrates than some grain containing foods. And certainly it can have higher levels of glyphosate, which is something to be aware of.
Dr. Judy Morgan 20:00
Yeah, and so before when you and I were talking we were talking about the whole DCM dilated cardiomyopathy debacle with grain free foods. And you brought up a really good point. And we're not even going to get down that train because that that was a train wreck.
Dr. Judy Morgan 20:12
But you brought up a really good point that these things that are in the food in the grain free foods are lentils and chickpeas and beans and potatoes and peas. And they're very high in glyphosate.
Dr. Katie Kangas
Yeah, I forgot I should mention oats is on that list, too. That's a biggie, oats and wheat...
Dr. Judy Morgan
So we've got all these things in there, and they're very high in glyphosate. Well, if glyphosate is wrecking the gut, and wrecking the microbiome, it only stands to reason that the pets are going to be sicker. And we're going to get things like cardiomyopathies or autoimmune disease or so I think that in a lot of the testing and discussion that's being done, they're kind of missing, like this elephant in the room that should be talked about.
Dr. Judy Morgan 21:07
All right. So immune compromised, by leaky gut.
Dr. Katie Kangas 21:13
Yes. So again, because this immune tract, this large immune tract in the body is right behind the gut barrier, the immune system becomes constantly compromised, and in overdrive and now like I said, you can search PubMed, and you can see all kinds of studies being done on what that is doing to immune health and lending to leading to chronic health conditions for both animals and humans. And there's even an article Leaky Gut, Leaky Brain, on PubMed, where it talks about the blood brain barrier, and they're relating a lot of, you know, cognitive and brain related diseases to a leaky gut. But certainly it's linked to psoriasis, skin problems, arthritis, you know, in humans, rheumatoid, of course, in our doggies, immune mediated polyarthritis, IMPA, all of these things are being, you know, linked to gut health.
Dr. Judy Morgan 22:12
There you go, we got to fix the gut. And not it's not only herbicides and glyphosate and what's in the food, it's also things that are being prescribed for our pets. So a lot of medications are going to fall into this category of causing leaky gut.
Dr. Katie Kangas
Yep. So as you said, you know, the toxins in the food toxins in the water, heavily processed foods, too, by the way, this all causes GI inflammation. But as you mentioned, the use of prescription medications definitely has a big play in this too, for both pets and humans, obviously. And so non steroidal anti inflammatories, you know, pain medications. corticosteroids, of course, take their toll. And then antibiotics, you know, that causes leaky gut, not to mention a microbiome disruption. So you got a lot going on with that, too. And we know antibiotics are very overused in humans, and animals, too.
Dr. Judy Morgan
So that brings us and this is why people are listening to a holistic podcast, because it's like, okay, great. You've told us all the things that cause problems and all these things that our veterinarian is telling us to use, like these highly processed kibble based diets and all these medications to fix all the inflammation that's going on in the body. Nobody ever talked about the gut. So let's give people a list of options that they might include to help heal all this damage that's been done.
Dr. Katie Kangas
Absolutely. So there's so many good things and of course near and dear to your and my heart, starting with food medicine is such a beautiful thing to do. So some of the foods that I really like to promote for gut health include bone broth, which of course bone, I love to call bone broth, a healing potion, you know, there's so many things that it does help the body with and most people know, of course, it's helping with joints, and mobility, but it is fantastic for gut and it's on the list of healing foods for gut and that collagen. And the gelatin really helps to seal those gut membrane barriers. So that's very useful. There's a lot of other components and amino acids in bone broth that are very helpful. So that's a really good one. Raw milk is also on especially goat's milk, but raw milk is very healthy food. And that is also beneficial for the gut and is on the on the list of good gut health foods. And then fermented foods. Another really useful food and of course, everybody knows that fermented foods have very good viable beneficial bacteria in it, probiotics and a natural form that are helping to support the microbiome and gut health in general. So those are some of the top three foods that are really good to incorporate.
Dr. Judy Morgan 25:00
Absolutely. And then we can also add supplements. So we've been talking about the microbiome. So certainly prebiotic, which is a fiber, and a good probiotic. When you're looking for a probiotic, what things do you look for?
Dr. Katie Kangas 25:17
I like to look for variety. And you know, there are many products that just have one or two or three bacteria in them. And you definitely want, you know, I always like to explain the microbiome is this diverse or should be, rarely is anymore, right, but should be a diverse ecosystem of all kinds of different microbes. And when the microbiome starts to narrow, that's when you know, health will be challenged. And so even though a probiotic product obviously is designed to have a friendly good bacteria in it, that's going to have some therapeutic good value to the body. But when there's more variety, that's going to do even more. And I am a fan of either rotating or intermittently using probiotics depending on the situation with the individual with the pet or the person.
Dr. Katie Kangas 26:09
Because when you're constantly using the same probiotic formula, then you're starting to outcompete some of the the microbes that are inherently in the gut, and you can narrow the microbiome and lose some diversity that way. So it is nice to rotate. And I like to look for formulas that have a variety that also would have like canine specific or, you know, pet specific bacteria in there as well.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Yep. And I really like products that have humic, and fulvic acids. So there are a lot of times those are going to be soil based probiotics, that sort of thing, I think can be really helpful. And it's interesting, because I've had dogs that have leaky gut and allergies and all kinds of issues when I adopt them or foster them. And one of the things that they do is they go out and they find the best dirt in the yard where there's you know, and they're looking to do basically a microbial transplant into their body. So every time I'd see them out there eating dirt, I'm like, Okay, we need more probiotics, we need to get the humic and fulvic acid into you.
Dr. Judy Morgan 27:17
we get mad when our pets do this. And we're like, why are you doing that? It's like, well, they're actually just self medicating. So you know, and applaud them and then get them some supplements. So other things that we could throw in there digestive enzymes, glutamine is one of my favorites. We're almost out of time. But do you have some favorite herbs, herbs that you'd like to give these guys?
Dr. Katie Kangas
Yeah, and then all round back to the humic substances. So what you just mentioned, I like both of those things. And then when it comes to herbs, there are some really great choices that help to heal the inflammation on the inner lining of the gut or inside the gut. So that can be step one in helping to not only heal IBD or, you know, other other inflammatory problems, but to avoid leaky gut, and some of those herbs, marshmallow and slippery elm, licorice root, plantain, you know, very, very good ones on the list. And there are more beyond that. But that is a wonderful place to start. And then the humic substances I'd love to add, just a thing too, yes, this, you know, decayed matter from the soil is essentially humic substances, those are very, very helpful. And they're very looked at too or found to be specifically helpful in healing leaky gut and helping that tight cellular junction to regain. So really good thing to do. And one of my favorite books, which I wish I had displayed, that's written by a functional medicine human doctor, Dr. Josh Axe is Eat Dirt.
Dr. Katie Kangas 28:46
So Eat Dirt, you know, that's the title of the book so.
Dr. Judy Morgan
easy to remember. I love it. Okay. Well, Katie, thank you so much. You This was a wealth of information, like you packed that all in there really fast. And I just I think people are gonna have to go back and listen to it a few times and take a lot of notes. Thank you very much. And I think I'll be seeing you soon.
Dr. Katie Kangas
Thank you. My pleasure. It was great to be here.
Outro
Thanks for listening to another great Naturally Healthy Pets episode. Be sure to check out the show notes for some helpful links. And if you enjoy the show, please be sure to follow and listen for free on your favorite podcast app. We value your feedback and we'd love to hear from you on how we're doing. Visit DrJudyMorgan.com for healthy product recommendations, comprehensive courses, upcoming events and other fantastic resources. Until next time, keep giving your pet the vibrant life they deserve.
DISCLAIMER
The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. It is no substitute for professional care by a veterinarian, licensed nutritionist or other qualified professional. You're encouraged to do your own research and should not rely on this information as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Dr. Judy and her guests express their own views, experience and conclusions. Dr. Judy Morgan's Naturally Healthy Pets neither endorses or opposes any particular view discussed here.
