12. Gut Health, the Microbiome, and Plant-Forward Diets with Dr. Vanessa Méndez

In today's episode, I'm chatting with Dr. Vanessa Méndez, a triple board-certified gastroenterologist, internist, and lifestyle medicine physician specializing in digestive disorders including liver disease and inflammatory bowel diseases, and nutrition based-disorders, such as obesity and constipation. Her approach to patients and their diseases is holistic and comprehensive; her goal is not just to treat the symptoms, but to get to the root cause of an ailment and provide lasting relief. All her methods are evidence-based and she is a proponent of lifestyle changes first to promote wellness. In 2021, Dr. Méndez co-founded Planted Forward, a multi-specialty integrative telemedicine practice where healers can best serve their patients through the power of evidence-based, lifestyle, and integrative medicine. In this episode, Dr. Méndez and I dive deep into the topic of gut health as we explore the process of digestion, the gut microbiome and its functions, factors affecting the health of our microbiome, the link between stress, disease, and the microbiome, common causes of gut imbalances and their effects on the body, why your supplements may be causing more harm than good, improving gut diversity through nutrition, the best diet for gut health, tips for dealing with bloating/gas from plant-based foods, and how much is a healthy amount to poop every day. This episode has so much valuable information that you might want to listen to it twice! Thank you for listening!

For more from Dr. Méndez:

https://www.drvanessamendez.com

https://www.plantedforward.com

@plantbasedgutdoc on Instagram

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