Mahmoud Ghannoum - Total Gut Balance - Fix Your Mycobiome Fast for Complete Digestive Wellness

Fix Your Mycobiome Fast for Complete Digestive Wellness

With 50 Recipes to Lose Weight and Feel Great

Mahmoud Ghannoum, PhD
with Eve Adamson

To my wife, Marie, and children, Afif, Emma, and Adam.

Your love always inspires me to keep going.

In all the discussions about the community of microorganisms living in the human gut (the microbiome) and its good and bad bacteria; in all the science about how to manipulate bacterial populations to increase gut health; and in all the media urging greater awareness of the microbiomes influence on us all, there has been a missing link. The science of the microbiome has, until recently, largely neglected an active and potentially virulent community within: It is fungus, and it is among us.

The fungi in your microbiome may not outnumber the bacteria, but it can compromise your health, contributing to weight gain, digestive problems, inflammatory bowel disorders, and even mood disorders and mental illness. As a research scientist specializing in fungus, I have dedicated my life to the study of the fungi that live in our guts, as well as in and on other parts of our bodies. Ive witnessed firsthand what kind of trouble fungi can cause. Infections and systemic inflammation are a couple of obvious ways fungi can cause trouble, but they are devious in other waysfungi can work in an insidious partnership with bad bacteria to foil even the most aggressive medications and render useless our most vigorous efforts at dietary control.

Intestinal fungi in particular can work with disease-causing gut bacteria, forming sticky biofilms that are a lot like the plaque on your teeth. These biofilms coat the lining of your digestive tract, protecting harmful fungal and bacterial microbes from the bodys immune system, and even from antibiotic and antifungal treatment.

But we can outsmart them. Total Gut Balance is the first general-audience health book to explain how fungi work in the human gut, in ways that are beneficial, neutral, and detrimental to human health. If you have recently gained a lot of weight, or are having trouble losing weight; if you have digestive disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), stomach pain, bloating after eating, flatulence, belching, nausea, vomiting, acid reflux or heartburn, chronic constipation or diarrhea (or both); if you have a diagnosed chronic disease such as Crohns disease (CD), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), or colitis; or even if you just have a general feeling of poor health and low energy, then you need to know how to manage your total gut balance. It could be a root cause of your health and weight issues.

The good news is that gut fungi change rapidly. Gut bacteria, by contrast, is largely established at birth and while it can shift gradually with dietary changes, it can never completely be remade. Not so with fungus. The community of fungi inside and on the surface of a human host (thats you) is called the mycobiomea term I coined in 2010 that is now in widespread use in both the scientific community and in popular culture. The mycobiome is dynamic, shifting significantly with every meal.

We know that what you eat and do directly influence your gut fungi, and that your gut fungi, in turn, can directly influence what you weigh, how you feel, how well your immune system works, how much inflammation you have, and more. Within 24 hours, you can remake your mycobiome for better or for worse based on what you decide to eat and other factors within your control. When you make gut-friendly choices, you can set yourself on the fast track to total gut balance, which translates to weight loss, better digestion, improved health, and more energy. If you want results and you want them now, fungi are your inroad to a short-term as well as a long-term gut makeover.

In this book, you will learn a new way of eating for gut health that specifically targets fungi and takes advantage of its changeable nature. Youll also learn how to target the beneficial bacteria whose job it is to keep fungi under control. This can help you get the specific and dramatic results youve been hoping for, in record time.

The Mycobiome Diet is my potent and fast-acting solution to achieve total gut balance through direct intervention with gut fungi. This diet takes the best elements from many current popular research-based diets, but combines them for maximum total gut balance effect as follows:

Microbiome diets not only primarily target bacteria exclusively, but are often very low in carbs and sugars, which can help to decrease harmful bacteria but may leave beneficial microbes without sufficient fuel. To resolve this problem, the Mycobiome Diet addresses both bacteria and fungi, for a more encompassing approach to total gut balance. Another key difference is that the Mycobiome Diet contains more beneficial microbe-feeding fiber and resistant starch than typical microbiome diets, but avoids the potential problems associated with these dietary elements through a precise balancing and timing, so you will never eat too much of them at one time. This controls sugar-loving bacteria and fungi while at the same time sufficiently feeding microbes. Unlike other microbiome diets, the Mycobiome Diet also targets harmful biofilms with specific foods proven to break them down; offers detailed, evidence-based explanations for why it contains these specific foods and limits or eliminates other foods; and offers a much wider range of foods for maximum microbial diversity. Finally, the Mycobiome Diet addresses lifestyle elements proven to impact microbiome balance, in addition to dietary elements, making it truly unique and comprehensive.

The Paleo diet is similar to the Mycobiome Diet in its liberal use of natural whole foods. But the Mycobiome Diet does not prohibit foods that provide important fuel for beneficial fungi and bacteria, such as legumes and whole grains. It also limits inflammatory fats and animal proteins more than a typical paleo diet does.

The Mycobiome Diet can be (but need not be) vegetarian, plant-based, or vegan, but it specifically limits pathogenic fungi-enhancing foods (like sugar and refined grains) that are not typically prohibited on a plant-based diet. Moreover, the Mycobiome Diet has a more organized way of doling out healthy carbohydrate-rich foods throughout the day.

The Mycobiome Diet is a relatively low-carb diet, which helps to control sugar-loving pathogenic fungi, but unlike low-carb diets, it limits or eliminates certain types of animal products that we know are inflammatory and specifically linked to a less favorable, more disease-promoting microbiome balance.

Although the Mycobiome Diet contains plenty of healthy fats, the fats are primarily plant-based, unlike the typically animal-based fats in a standard ketogenic diet. Plant-based fats contain more gut-friendly monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats and fewer saturated fats that we know contribute to microbial imbalance.

The Mediterranean diet is similar to the Mycobiome Diet in that it is made up primarily of natural whole plant foods. But, in order to keep pathogenic fungi under control, the Mycobiome Diet does not overuse carbohydrate-rich foods. (Recent findings showed an increased prevalence of harmful fungi in subjects who ate a Mediterranean diet.) The Mycobiome Diet also limits (although does not completely prohibit) alcohol, which some versions of the Mediterranean diet do not specifically limit. The Mycobiome Diet sets these limits because we know that the combination of alcohol and certain fungi are linked to several health issues, including excessive inflammation and liver damage.