Let’s begin with my introduction. My name is XXX, I’m a Registered Dietitian who desires to assist you in augmenting your impact and legacy in this world as you heal your gut and work on reducing your IBS and digestive system symptoms. I wish to educate you to live life to the fullest, and provide tips and actionable information for you to take necessary action to achieve your health ambitions.
I’ll begin with an explanation. I don’t watch a lot of television because there are many other things in life that I have to attend to, but every once in a while I will take out my AirPods and catch something on my iPad while washing dishes, folding clothes, and all that. It helps in making those chores sound a little less boring during the late night, isn’t it? While looking for something to watch, I happened to find this New Netflix documentary about the gut called Hack Your Health: The Secrets of Your Gut. (Now, for someone with an in-depth understanding of science, nutrition or even the gut for that matter, it would be interesting to grab a seat, pause the tasks and properly concentrate on watching the entire thing, rather than recording it as background noise while doing the dishes, but I will let you make that choice.)
Initially, I was a little cautious because there have been far too many biased Netflix documentaries. So of course I am wariness of food documentaries and health documentaries. However, I was eager to know about it. The title looked quite appealing. There was no option but to watch it. One compelling option which any helpline offers is the hope to see if it is accurate or inaccurate or has some subjects with tight angle. There was no option but to inquire about it more.
On the whole, I was able to put up an impression. So yes I do wish to elaborate a little for a registered dietitian specializing in gut health and digestive issues! In this case, I will purposely exaggerate and say that this gut health documentary raid is by far the most necessary show we are currently looking for to promote the relevance of gut, therefore our gastrointestinal system, and the microbiome for the total health.
If you’ve been around my spaces on the internet for very long, you’ve heard me say, “I 100% want your digestive symptoms to improve but there’s not only about digestive issues”. For sure, that’s one of the reasons many people consult me–they have gut issues. But let me say it again: that is not the totality of their functional capabilities. Gut health. How well do you age? What is the risk of developing chronic diseases? A lot. And research is surfacing, one after the other, many of them saying the same things in different ways.
Hack Your Health: The Secrets of Your Gut was one of those films that highlighted some of those sentiments that I hold. Now there were some things I agreed with and some points I disagreed with in this film and I will share those here.
Transfer home: Allow me to tiptoe around the fact that I don’t want to ruin this documentary for you if you haven’t watched it yet, but I really want to urge you to do so. This is not a review per se, it’s more of my take on the film with a brief synopsis so I hope I am not being too revealing here. I touch upon the issues that I regarded as major including but not limited to the parts that impressed me, the reasons I would recommend it to my audience, and some minor facts that might not appeal to all audiences and should be noted before commencing the viewing.
To begin with, I was really impressed with the global view that the film was trying to promote. They show that there are all these random ‘specialists’ in the world dealing with our unique problems and specific systems of our bodies. While in reality, everything is related! We’re human! What actually hooked me was that the film was able to convey the fact that your microbiome affects everything in the body–cause obviously, it’s everything, but it was also something that was brilliantly captured in the documentary itself.
There was enough space to describe the processes focusing on how and why. They talked about digestion and how your gut functions. Sometimes, they are in a museum where all the exhibits are in the form of interactive displays of gut health that expand on the structure and physiology of the stomach and intestines. Furthermore, researchers and field specialists are also employed here to elaborate on the different areas. And also these sweet animations are used to express their ideas and convey the message because some of those ideas are quite advanced and complex to grasp this is particularly the case with someone who does not have a biology, science or nutrition education. These explanations make a great sense because, if we know how exactly something works or is supposed to work, there can be great opportunities to compare what is actually happening in one’s body and identify areas of non-optimal function that require correction in order to achieve optimal performance.
People often wonder what gut health is. For those who would like to know, this documentary offers a wonderful explanation on what gut health is, how it functions as well as explaining everything about digestion and the gut microbiome.
Another positive aspect of it was that due to funny animations and museum-style exhibits, it was not a boring science refresher course. It was made more relevant, interesting and easier to grasp for the ordinary citizen.
But probably the most interesting parts of this documentary were those explaining the food sensitivities and how hard it gets for someone with IBS to expand their diet. For those who suffer from chronic digestion symptoms, have limited diet because they want to eat more types of foods, the documentary eloquently explains on the reasons and solution to that issue as well.
Spoiler alert: For food sensitivities, they recommend what I tell patients as well, which is to micro-dose new foods that you feel you react to, as long as it is not a genuine food allergy. (If it is a true food allergy, I’m sorry but that’s a different ball game!) But if it is something that you think triggers symptoms like heartburn or bloat, then probably begin with just one bite, see how you feel afterward, and from there build it up slowly. The reason being: you don’t have the organisms in your gut which can aid in breaking down some of those fibers and some foods so you tend to react to them. This is why after micro-dosing the trigger foods, you do not end up feeling miserable and can gradually reconstruct your microbiome over the period of time. Make sure to check out the documentary because it has details regarding this on a larger scale!
They also did a really nice job explaining how the gut and brain are two entities supporting each other and work in coordination with one another. They cover the gut-brain axis. Parkinson’s. Alzheimer’s, all of that. They go over regarding how our thoughts affect our guts, our gut health affects our thoughts, and how it can become this real vicious cycle that is difficult to break.
This is something I actually do with my clients in my signature program Gut Rehab as well. My program has a whole mindset aspect because the gut-brain relationship is so much crucial. If you don’t deal with it, your results will be completely in vain.
The last thing this documentary quite impressed me is they suggest another gut healthy tactic which I suggest often, that is to have at least 20 to 30 types of fruits and vegetables per week. This has been shown to tremendously decrease any gut symptoms and gut health issues. This is due to the fact that variety is the essence and we always want to have many different kinds of organisms residing in our gut to restore equilibrium. We don’t want to allow one organism to have a monopoly. So eating a range of foods in your diet and not eating the same food day in and day out will be very effective in ensuring that does not happen.
1) My opinion: Around gut microbiome testing, it can be beneficial.
I want to focus on the arguments presented in the film, especially those regarding the gut. The film, though, declares that microbiome testing does not bring about good results. To be frank, in some instances, I can’t say that I completely disagree with this. For instance, I never give a targeted specific probiotic to grow one type of organism because it is about balance and diversity and our microbiomes are in constant flux anyway. Give me one to eight probiotic supplements. It actually takes us some time to capitalize upon the positive effects, due to which a person must be patient. So in this case, one does not benefit from knowing all the numbers of the tests and trying to see just how far it is possible to go with a very narrow focus on several species of organisms.
Healthy diet practices 101 They are just so beneficial in the sense that a person is targeting several aspects at once: firstly, they can examine the structure of their gut, see what areas are problematic, see how active their digestion process is, see several markers of inflammation and then even identify up to 100 different destructive species. That is pretty good information to have and to know as well, in facts it s one of the most important things.
2) My opinion: I don’t recommend fecal transplants at the comfort of your own home.
The movie had a long scene where one of the girls whose research they were studying performed a fecal transplant at home. Fecal transplants are lifesaving methods for patients especially with C-diff. Fecal transplants may be extremely beneficial for individuals with chronic severe digestive problems, who are not responding to anything else but trying such, which I will never advocate for. Too many of us have too many dangers.
What if that other person is carrying dangerous bacteria? In the video we saw a girl performing it and stating she took her brother’s stool for this and her brother had depression and anxiety. She was performing it while getting more depressed. So I think it’s dangerous and not as effective as one would think, there is not much information that can endorse it. Therefore this is something I do suggest you don’t do.
This is why I wish you to check out the 2024 Netflix documentary about gut health called Hack Your Health: The Secrets of Your Gut. It is a nice documentary to understand more of how the gut and digestive system functions and the whys as to why it works that way, and it gives excellent building blocks to fostering better gut health.
For more movies visit like Hack Your Health: The Secrets of Your Gut on 123Movies.