Episode 24: Saccharomyces boulardii for dogs

00:00:32 Glenn:       Welcome back to Natural Health for People and Pets. I'm co-host of the show, Glen Cooke, and I'm gonna introduce the host of the show and also the newly claimed director of the wonderful product, Canine Ceuticals. Nelle Cooke.  

00:00:45 Narelle:        Hello everyone. Yeah, life has been busy, to say the least, hasn't it? I mean, for the past two years, but particularly the last couple of months in launching my new dog supplement range, CanineCeuticals.  

00:00:56 Glenn:        I know we've talked about this on the show before and we've mentioned how busy you've been, but I don't know if people really get the full rundown of how busy you actually have been with the whole product. Eight hour days, seven days a week.  

00:01:09 Narelle:        Eight hours. Oh, that sounds lovely.  

00:01:10 Glenn:       Yeah, it's probably more than that, right? 

00:01:12 Narelle:        It’d be more on a daily basis. And it is seven days a week. I've got two businesses now. I've got my clinical practice as well as CanineCeuticals, so it really is around the clock when you're doing it yourself.  

00:01:22 Glenn:       So the great thing is the launch was successful. You did a launch day on Australia day in January. It was very successful. You got a lot of really good feedback, and more importantly, you got a lot of good purchases. So a lot of people stood behind the product. They're very excited about it. What was also nice was to see people's Instagram profiles where they were doing their little unboxing and showing their arrivals because you boxed it up so nicely.  

00:01:45 Narelle:        That was wonderful. I really appreciated people doing that. And I mean, part of CanineCeuticals is it's an experience. So when people do receive their order, you know, we want them to feel good and they are getting something special for their dog. So we wanna represent that in the way we package our product.  

00:02:00 Glenn:        The other great thing about it too, is you've been getting some great support. You've had a few people that have really got behind you and helped you out with the product and really been putting some great time into investing with you as well. So that's been a wonderful thing.  

00:02:13 Narelle:       It has. I really appreciate all the help that I've been getting because it is pretty impossible to do everything yourself, so I do rely on people to sort of get me through so I don't end up in a pile of a breakdown.  

00:02:26 Glenn:        So a big thank you to the people that have also been behind the scenes in CanineCeuticals in helping Narelle out, getting it going. Very much appreciated.  

00:02:34 Narelle:       So you can check out my new range at canineceuticals.com au. So that's canine as in the dog, CANINECEUTICALS.com au.  

00:02:47 Glenn:        CanineCeuticals is a difficult word to spell when you are thinking about it, 'cause I typed cue first, so it's ceu.  

00:02:53 Narelle:        Yeah. I guess as a practitioner, ceuticals is sort of a commonplace word, so I was surprised a little bit when people were like, ceuticals, how do you spell that? But once you find the site just bookmark it and you will never lose it again. 

00:07:59 Narelle:        So today I wanna talk about gut health, but I wanna focus specifically on the probiotic species, saccharomyces boulardii.   

00:08:11 Glenn:       That’s what it is, 'cause just before we started the show, you said the title was SB for Dogs, and I said, what's sb? And you said, well, you'll learn in the show. That's  

00:08:19 Narelle:       That’s right. The industry lingo instead of who wants to say saccharomyces boulardii  every time? So we just abbreviated it to SB. And I've actually had a few messages over time where people will say, oh, I can't find the brand SB, but it's not a brand. You can find SB as an ingredient across a lot of different products and a lot of different brands. A lot of brands will have it as a pure supplement, which is what I do for CanineCeuticals. I've got my pure SB10 product. And as we go through the show, you'll learn why I love it so much and why I've chosen to have a pure single ingredient probiotic product in my range.  

00:08:56 Glenn:        Can I just add there, I'm not trying to do a flog for CanineCeuticals, but a lot of the reason the development of this came about was because of Ladybug. And we've told this story to other people, but it's worth noting for people who are listeners of this show. So Ladybug, who's our French bulldog, we've done the show about what happened to Ladybug and so on and so on. It was her that lit the fire under Narelle. It was something that I know that you'd thought about, but never really wanted to pull the trigger on. And because of Ladybug and the condition and our endless research for trying to get good quality products for her, this is why all this came about. And a big part of her recovery was also good gut health as well. So the only reason I know all this is because Narelle educated me on the way. So I had no real clue on what to do, or spinal regenerative compounds, or herbs or tonics or tinctures, or whatever you were putting together for it. But when we're talking about Narelle study time, the amount of time she spent online and researching scientific literature was to find out how do we actually get Ladybug's brain and her….

00:09:58 Narelle:      Well, how do we save our dog?  

00:09:59 Glenn:       How do we save a dog? Yeah, more importantly. But also how do we get her brain to talk to her back legs? That was fundamentally the big catalyst for getting all of this to come together. And then Narelle would say to me, but it's not just this, it's not just about the herbs for whatever she was putting together to get the nervous system to regenerate, it was also gut health. So sorry to hijack, but I just thought it was really important for people to know this because I don't think people really understand. That one also compliments the other.  

00:10:25 Narelle:       Absolutely, and look, as a clinical practitioner for humans for many years, I'm so used to using or having access to like the highest quality supplements for my human clients. And when it came to dogs, I'm in a position where, yeah, I can grab a human supplement and know if it's safe and know how to dose it accordingly. But you know, I can't really pass that information on to other people because the average pet owner doesn't know how to assess safety and dosing for their particular dog. So, you know, part of it was trying to bring that high quality to a product that's labelled for dogs, that's dosed for dogs that, you know, everything in there is on the label, nothing hidden, full transparency. But talking about gut health, I always come back to, you know, as a naturopath, we are taught Hippocrates thousands of years ago, stated that all disease begins in the gut.  

00:11:12 Narelle:        And it's only in recent decades that, you know, current science is really starting to catch up with that concept that has been around for so long. And it's truly the case for us to be, well, for our dogs to be well, gut health has to be optimal. So, you know, that's what we'll sort of be touching on today. So getting back to SB, it's a beneficial probiotic. And although we only tend to think of probiotics as bacteria, SB is what's called a non colonising, non-pathogenic yeast. So a yeast is a type of fungus, so that might surprise some people. But SB, it's probably one of the most researched probiotics out there. Definitely for humans, I'd say. But you know, in the animal world too, it's got a lot of research behind it. When we think of yeast because of, you know, yeasty ears and yeasty skin and candida and all of that sort of stuff, we tend to only think of yeast as bad.  

00:12:04 Glenn:       Or beer and bread.  

00:12:05 Narelle:       Oh yeah, <laugh>.  

00:12:07 Glenn:        That was where my go-to on the yeast <laugh>.  

00:12:10 Narelle:       But SB, it's definitely one of the good guys. So it is a yeast, but it's a beneficial yeast, and there's good science to show that it can help against pathogenic yeast, like candida and things like that. So, I guess I've just said that it's non colonising, so I wanna expand on that a little bit. Because again I think a lot of listeners, you know, believe that when you take a probiotic supplement, or you know, you give it to your dog, that it colonises the intestinal tract. Meaning that, you know, it goes in, takes up residence, it starts to multiply, and you know, it becomes a permanent fixture of the microbiome, whether that's for months or years to come. But that's not actually how it works in the majority of cases. So most probiotics that we take are considered transient, which means that they might hang around for a few days or a few weeks, but then they're eventually cleared from the body.  

00:12:59 Narelle:        So they're still metabolically active as they move through the body and they might grow and they might divide, but they're not expected to replicate to high enough numbers or to be able to displace members of what's called our native gut microbiota. Which makes sense because, you know, we've got trillions of species like bacterial species, yeast and things like that in our gastrointestinal tract. So to put in a probiotic, it's like tipping your bottle of water out in the ocean. It really is like a drop in the ocean. Which might have people now going, well, what's the point? But there's definitely a point. Don't throw out your probiotics just yet because they're absolutely beneficial and they can influence our gut microbes in a direction that's really healthy and beneficial. I'll talk a bit about how generally they're working, and then we'll get a little bit more specific about SB.  

00:13:52 Narelle:        But probiotics are amazing because they can competitively inhibit less desirable species. So a good way to think of that, let's say you've got a backyard lawn that's really thick and lush and really even. It's really hard in that instance for weeds, not that I'm a gardener, but for weeds to take hold because there's such a barrier of that sort of even lush lawn. But if you've got a back lawn that's patchy and there's gaps in it, then that's easier for weeds to get in, and take hold because they don't have to compete for the space. They don't have to compete for the nutrients from the soil or the moisture or the light. Does that make sense?   

00:14:31 Glenn:        I guess it's a reasonable analogy.  

00:14:33 Narelle:       You know, if our gut health is compromised and we don't have the numbers or the diversity of the good bacteria that we want in our systems, it just allows that space for the less desirable species to sort of take hold and flourish.  

00:14:48 Glenn:        Yeah, that makes sense.  

00:14:48    Narelle:    Whereas probiotics, when you consume them, even though they're not hanging around forever, they can still fill those spaces and stop the bad guys from getting in and taking home. Probiotics also produce toxic compounds that can inhibit and kill off less desirable species. They produce beneficial substances like vitamins, fatty acids, sugars, things that can actually feed and promote the growth of our beneficial microbes. They can work to promote a stronger immune response, they can help with the health of the gut barrier itself, and they can down regulate inflammation. So all of that's hugely beneficial to us and our dogs. So even though they're passing through, still worth taking. But having said that, people need to understand that to get the ongoing benefits of a probiotic, you really do need to take it on a consistent basis. And you know, the degree to which you do that, I guess we'll come back to the health condition that you're trying to treat. But if we talk about SB specifically, just a little fun fact of how it was discovered.  

00:15:51 Narelle:       It was only discovered a hundred years ago when a French microbiologist named, I can't do accents, so I won't try. Henri Boulard was visiting China during a cholera outbreak. So cholera is a potentially life-threatening bacterial infection of the small intestine and while he was there, he noticed that the people for the most part were drinking this tea that was prepared by cooking down the skins of mangosteen and lychee fruits to help prevent the diarrhoea that comes with infection from cholera. So, you know, as a good microbiologist, he examined the tea and he was able to isolate a particular strain of yeast that was then named after him saccharomyces boulardii. There you go. I love little history stories. As I said,SB’s a yeast, it's not a bacteria, so as a yeast, it's got quite a few unique properties that differentiate it from bacterial probiotics.  

00:16:40 Narelle:        It's got a completely different cell structure, larger in size than bacterial probiotics, and because of these differences, it's actually recognized differently in the body and can create a different immune response from the body than bacterial probiotics. It also operates really well at body temperature, like human and dog body temperature. It's not killed off by really acidic gastric acid, which is absolutely key when it comes to probiotics for dogs. So if a lot of probiotics are sensitive to low pH, so acidic environments, but SB is great, it's not killed off by bowel salts, which just another compound in the body that have antimicrobial properties, and it's also resistant to enzymes produced in the body. But I guess one of the biggest benefits of SB as a probiotic over say the bacterial species, is that it's resistant to antibiotics. So we should all know by now that antibiotics only kill bacteria.  

00:17:35 Narelle:        Which is why we should never take antibiotics if we've got a viral infection or a fungal infection, otherwise we're just creating, you know, greater antibiotic resistance. Again, we know particularly in well humans and dogs, that one of the largest side effects of antibiotic use is the destruction of beneficial bacteria in the gut. And once you kill off enough beneficial bacteria, again that allows those opportunistic pathogenic bacteria to come in. And that's where you get the symptoms of diarrhoea that a lot of people experience, a lot of dogs experience, when they're on a course of antibiotics. SB’s being shown to inhibit the overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria during antibiotic treatment. That's one of the key reasons why I wanted it in my range, because nearly every dog client I see on them, the intake form, there's a history of antibiotic use, so it's really important that we address that.  

00:18:23 Narelle:        But I just wanna say, talking about antibiotics, a lot of pet owners assume that if it's natural, if it's a herbal antimicrobial compound, that it's only gonna kill off the bad bugs and it's completely safe. But a lot of herbs are broad spectrum antimicrobial. So a lot of herbal medicines will kill off the good as well as the bad. So, you've gotta keep that in mind. So if you've got a dog and you've got it on an antimicrobial formula, that is not ideal to be doing everyday long term. You're gonna cause as much damage as a prescription antibiotic.

00:18:52 Glenn:       It's good to know. 

00:18:53 Narelle:        I was thinking one day I should do a show on something like that.  

00:18:58 Glenn:        I think that would probably be beneficial, just so people are fundamentally aware of what's happening.  

00:19:03 Narelle:       Okay, noted. So if we look at some of the specific benefits of giving SB to our dog. It's been shown to improve nutrient digestibility, particularly improving fibre digestibility. So I see online it's quite a topic of conversation whether dogs need plants, whether dogs need fibre because they're carnivores mm-hmm. All of that sort of thing.  

00:19:23 Glenn:       Well they're omnivores really, aren't they? I mean, a cat is a true carnivore. A cat is a meat eater.  

00:19:28 Narelle:       Yeah. So a cat's an obligate carnivore. Dogs are facultative, carnivores, because of the way they've evolved alongside humans. Like they do have the ability to consume a much broader diet than they originally potentially were designed for. But the thing is, I think plant matter and fibre is so important, and all of our dogs get some really beautiful plant matter from their Big Dog patties. So I don't have to worry about that. But when Ladybug, coming back to Ladybug and gut health, when she had her spinal injury, I mean, she, and she still does have degree of faecal incontinence, so she's gonna poo. She can't control that, if it's gonna come out, it's just gonna come out.   

00:20:06 Glenn:        It's like watching the Easter Bunny lay eggs.  

00:20:09 Narelle:        It is, yeah. So when you've got a dog with faecal incontinence, you want their poos to be a hundred percent awesome, a hundred percent of the time. Fibre has been just a godsend for managing Ladybug. So in addition to the plant matter she gets in her Big Dog patties, two years ago when she first had her accident, I added in an additional fibre supplement, which is now the Gut Protect that I sell through CanineCeuticals. We have not had a single…

00:20:33 Glenn:        She hasn't had diarrhoea since the day she had her accident.  

00:20:36 Narelle:       She hasn't even had sticky poo. No. 'cause we're on carpet here, so even sticky poo would be problematic.  

00:20:40 Glenn:       It's been amazing, well-formed. I know it's not nice talking about poos, but it's been the nicest poo that you could ever hope for in a dog that's got problems and just poos at a whim. 

00:20:52 Narelle:       But it is important, and it is important dog owners understand the importance of good poos. So I think we're talking to the right audience here.  

00:20:58 Glenn:       And the amazing thing about Ladybug is that when you look at the poo, sometimes you just can't believe that such a little dog could do such a huge amount of poo.  

00:21:04 Narelle:        Yeah, back to fibre and SB. So SB, because it helps in the digestion of fibre. It then goes on to help with the production of what's called short-chain fatty acids. It's actually a term that's starting to be used more and more online in blogs around dog health. But short-chain fatty acids, they’re things like acetate, propionate, butyrate, so particularly butyrate when it comes to SB. But they're compounds that have such a powerful effect on our health, like beneficial effect in terms of protecting our cells. They fuel our cells, they can produce antimicrobial compounds. They basically keep the whole colonic environment healthy. And as part of that, people are familiar with leaky gut they're also, those short chain fatty acids are sort of helping to minimise and prevent, but also heal situations of leaky gut. So that's a really important feature that SB helps to promote.  

00:21:56 Narelle:        SB enhances what's called brush border enzymes. So these are enzymes that are produced in the intersite. So an intersite is a cell line in the small intestine. So again, this is maybe another area that many of the listeners are not familiar with. So a lot of people will know that the pancreas produces a variety of different pancreatic enzymes. Things like amylase for carbohydrate breakdown, we've got proteinases for protein breakdown, lipases for fat breakdown. But enzymes are also produced in the intestines. Now, the best way to think of the whole situation is that the pancreas does the heavy lifting, so to speak. So if we pick an example, let's say we talk about amylase. So you've got pancreatic amylase, which is gonna do most of the work in helping our bodies to break down and digest carbohydrates, but they're still in pretty large fragments that the body can't really utilise or absorb.  

00:22:45 Narelle:        So once those larger breakdown products from the pancreas move further down the small intestine, that's where these additional brush border enzymes kick in to help break down those fragments even further. So people don't need to know the names of all the brush border enzymes, but one that you'll be familiar with is lactase. So lactase is the enzyme needed to break down the sugar compound lactose that we get in dairy food. So, you know, someone who's lactose intolerant, they just don't have enough of that enzyme lactase to help deal with the dairy coming in. And that's where you'll often get symptoms like, you know, diarrhoea, bloating and gas, if they exceed their threshold. Now puppies, they do produce some lactase, but once they're weaned and they're onto solid foods, they pretty much stop producing lactase, and it's the same with humans. After infancy we don't really have a lot of that lactase enzyme and as an average, you know, maybe 65% of adults have a reduced ability to digest lactose. But in some cultures, or in some parts of the world, particularly people of East Asian descent that can be nearly a hundred percent of the population just don't handle dairy. So milk is not their friend. Which reminds me of a funny story that we have. 

00:23:57 Glenn:        It's about the milk. 

00:23:58 Narelle:       Milk.

00:24:01 Glenn:        Long story that one.  

00:24:01 Narelle:        Long story, not for the show, but…

00:24:04 Narelle:        You know, you don't need to give your dog milk. I sort of cringe when I hear people saying they're putting out bowls of milk for their dogs and cats. It's not necessary. And they're not really gonna tolerate it for the most part. So before we get into some dog specific studies around SB. Like I said, I've done a lot of writing around SB from when I used to work for a human health company as a research officer. So in the human world, a lot of the clinical research around SB has shown that it's significantly beneficial in reducing antibiotic associated diarrhoea, clostridium difficile infection. So usually that's abbreviated to ‘C.diff’.

00:24:42 Glenn:       What’s that?  

00:24:42 Narelle:        Bacterial infection. Dogs get it too. It's a really common one in dogs. Acute diarrhoea, persistent diarrhoea, diarrhoea that comes when people are tube fed, travellers diarrhoea, helicobacter pylori infection. SB is also being clinically shown to help in cases of Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, any sort of parasitic infections, blastocystis hominis, which is just referred to as blasto. So you can see the research is really strong around SB for diarrhoea. So if you've got diarrhoea or your dog's got diarrhoea, there's a lot of good research around why you should be taking SB and the benefits of that.  

00:25:19 Glenn:        Well, nobody could ever accuse you of under researching products.  

00:25:23 Narelle:       Well, like I said, my background is research and a lot of the CanineCeuticals range I've researched extensively for the human equivalence.  

00:25:30 Glenn:       Yeah, I know it.  

00:25:32 Narelle:       I do know it, and the beauty of that is the regulations around human supplements are really stringent. So you've gotta dot your i's cross your t's and you've gotta have, if you're gonna claim something, you've gotta have  

00:25:43 Glenn:        Evidence to support it.

00:25:44 Narelle:        The science behind it. So if we have a look at a couple of dog studies, there was one as recent as 2018 that looked at the effects of SB in dogs with chronic enteropathy. Now that was a double-blinded placebo controlled study, which means it was a good quality study. So the term enteropathy, that's just referring to any pathology of the intestines. And because it's chronic, it's been going for, you know, a few weeks or longer. So in this study they had various breeds of dogs of various ages that had just been diagnosed with chronic gut issues basically. And they were given either SB or a placebo for 10 days. Now what's really important to note is that in the study, the dose given to the dogs was 1 billion colony forming units per kilogram of body weight twice daily.  

00:26:33 Narelle:        That means a 10 kilogram dog would receive 10 billion colony forming units twice a day. A 20 kilo dog would get 20 billion twice a day, et cetera. The CanineCeuticals Pure SB10 contains 10 billion colony forming units per capsule. So it makes it really easy to dose according to the research. And this is a really important point because I see it all the time in clinic, is clients not taking the therapeutic dose that has been clinically proven to get them the results that they need. So someone might have arthritis and I'll say, you need to take fish oil, and they'll say, I've tried that, didn't work. And I'll say, how many fish oil capsules did you take? And they’ll say, one or two a day. And I sort of like, oh, because a lot of the times they'll be buying a low strength fish oil where they might need to take eight to 10 capsules a day to hit that…  

00:27:19 Narelle:        Therapeutic dose that's been clinically shown to reduce symptoms of arthritis. But who's gonna comply with 10 capsules a day? So one, that's why you should get a high quality, high strength formula. But sometimes it's unavoidable, whether it's a dog or a human. Sometimes you literally just need to take a lot of something, tablets or capsules to hit the therapeutic dose for at least a short period of time. Because unfortunately manufacturers, and the reputable companies will actually dose according to the research, and unfortunately they can't always fit enough in a single tablet or a single capsule to get to that required dose. Otherwise, the capsule will be huge. Well, they'll be like horse tablets and then no one's gonna comply with that. So, that brings me to another point. Just because an ingredient is listed in a product, it doesn't mean it's at a strength that's gonna have a benefit.  

00:28:08 Narelle:        So some companies that are less reputable will just include the name of an ingredient and people will associate that ingredient with a particular benefit. But it might be the tiniest little amount of that just so they can do naming rights on the labels. So anyway, something to be aware of. So in this study, you know, they did heaps of tests on all the dogs, they did blood tests, faecal tests, and at the end of the study they found that dogs given the SB at that dosing that we've just described, they had significantly fewer, or no clinical signs compared to the controlled dogs that just got the placebo. So what that means in this study is that they had reduced faecal frequency, which is awesome if you've got a dog with diarrhoea you know, you want less of it.  

00:28:49 Narelle:        They had improved stool consistency, so firmer stools again, awesome. Improved body condition score, 'cause a lot of dogs with chronic gut issues struggle to maintain condition. So these dogs actually improved with their body condition and improved activity level, 'cause they probably felt so much better. Of course, the study didn't report any adverse effects during the treatment with the SB. There were no interactions with any other medications that some of the dogs were taking at the time, like immunosuppressive drugs and antibiotics. So really strong research that matches what we've been seeing for a lot of years now coming through on the human research side of things. And there was another study done looking at SB in dogs given Vancomycin the antibiotic, and they concluded that it was an effective cure for diarrhoea in the dogs that were given the Vancomycin antibiotic. So if we just dig a little bit deeper, because it's one thing to say, and maybe this is just me, I don't know.  

00:29:44 Narelle:       It's one thing to say SB is beneficial for diarrhoea. But then I go, well, how, why? How is it actually working to stop my dog from getting diarrhoea? So if we just touch on a couple of the ‘why’s’. So firstly, if we look at infection, the most common enteric pathogens in dogs and cats are things like clostridium, e coli, and salmonella. So if you look at clostridium, it's often associated with antibody associated diarrhoea and there's a lot of research around C.diff and SB supplementation. So when a dog is infected with C.diff, 

00:30:20 Glenn: What's C.diff again? 

00:30:21 Narelle: Clostridium, bacteria, pathogenic bacteria. So it produces a couple of toxins, toxin A and toxin B. So SB actually prevents the clostridium toxins from binding to the cells in the gastrointestinal tract and it also helps to break apart the actual clostridium bacterium themselves.  

00:30:40 Narelle:       So that's how SB is working to prevent and heal C.diff infections. If we look at e coli. E coli primarily damages the gastrointestinal tract by breaking apart those tight junctions, which leads to the whole leaky gut syndrome. But to do that, e coli first has to adhere, or bind to the cells of the gastrointestinal tract. So SB actually physically prevents e coli from making contact with the intestinal cells and it also protects the integrity of those cells to prevent the leakiness and to reduce inflammation. If we think about salmonella, salmonella is everywhere in the environment, but it doesn't usually become a problem for us or our dogs unless we're immunocompromised. And in terms of helping against salmonella, SB immobilises salmonella. So it stops it from being able to do what it needs to do. So it stops it from invading the cells of the gut, and as a result, the salmonella just gets excreted from the body.  

00:31:35 Narelle:        So, I mean, they're all really important mechanisms of action for a single yeast compound. I find that fascinating just to understand how it's working. LIt's breaking apart the bacteria, it's neutralising toxins, it's stopping adherence of those pathogenic bacteria. So that's really awesome. It also has really powerful anti-inflammatory effects. So, you know, inflammation can be triggered by so many different things and it's almost at the point now where the research is saying that inflammation is the root cause of every disease. There's an inflammatory component to everything but SB helps in this situation by downregulating those pro-inflammatory compounds, while at the same time upregulating anti-inflammatory factors that are, you know, helping to protect and repair the gut. So that's really important. And probably the final point that's worth mentioning when it comes to SB is that it also promotes the production of an immune compound called secretory IgA.  

00:32:32 Narelle:       So we just shorten that to SIgA. So it's important for us, and our dogs, because it's like the first line of defence against the entry of any foreign substance into the body. So if you think about it, all our mucosal surfaces, and I guess we're more acutely aware of this now after the last couple of years of Covid. But our mucosal surfaces, the eyes, the nose, the throat, all our sinuses, the urinary tract, the gastrointestinal tract, they're all entry points for disease causing pathogens. So that's where bugs can get into us. So, the body's way of protecting these points of entry is by releasing this SIgA in the mucus layer that lines all of those membranes. So this SIgA basically binds to invading pathogens and neutralises them. So in humans, low or reduced SIgA levels are often seen in people with low immune system function.  

00:33:23 Narelle:        People who are suffering from allergies, atopic diseases like eczema, psoriasis, people with asthma, chronic gut infections, food sensitivities, things like that. It's a very similar situation with our dogs. So really important, you can see there's so many different ways that SB is working to promote health and prevent disease in our dogs. That was a lot of information and a lot of technical information that we've just gone through, so to summarise, consistently supplementing with SB has been shown to improve nutrient digestibility, optimise the immune system, physically and biochemically protect our dogs against the most common gastrointestinal pathogens. It reduces the risk of gastrointestinal disturbances. It protects against antibiotic associated diarrhoea. You know, there was one study I read that I think concluded by saying that when it comes to animals, SB may be the best probiotic for dogs and cats in terms of preventing pathogen invasion and just loss of that gut health.  

00:34:24 Narelle:        I think they said gastrointestinal homeostasis. But you know, that balance that we all need in our dogs' to maintain good health. Which brings us back to the very beginning when you're talking about Ladybug. And you know, yes, she's a spinal injury dog, but the gut, if that's out of balance, if there's dysbiosis. That has such a powerful downstream effect in terms of creating systemic inflammation that's going to compromise her body's ability to heal, it's gonna compromise her nervous system, from being able to repair and increase communication between body parts. When we talk about health and disease and bodies, we tend to talk about isolated parts, but everything is completely interconnected. So when we're talking about the gut, that's influencing every body system, every organ system that we have. Which is what, as a naturopath, we don't just focus on one part. You know, you've got cardiologists, you've got gastroenterologists, like in the mainstream medicine, you've got doctors who specialise in a body part. But that's where they specialise their knowledge. And often I get clients that come to me that have been to a specialist for a body part, and they've completely ignored how it's impacting other body parts and other parts of their health. Start with the gut. It all comes back to the gut.  

00:35:40 Glenn:        Well, I always found that interesting because fundamentally, when I've listened to other people talking about this subject throughout time, it might be health related. Or even without sounding woo woo about the spiritually related aspects, most people who have been doing high level research, or been actively involved in these pursuits throughout their life, always say the same thing. It's all connected. Everything is connected, and I think it's one thing that I don't know why we've been encouraged to ignore that. I dunno why we've been encouraged to look at things in isolated compounds rather than the connection of everything and how one thing can establish harmony, or destabilise in another, if attention isn't given to it.  

00:36:23 Narelle:       Absolutely. And I mean we're talking about probiotics today, particularly SB, but it's often said that we have 10 times the number of bacterial cells than we do human cells in the body. So, we often think that the bacteria in our guts are sort of hitching a ride on us, but it's more like we're hitching a ride on them, 'cause there's more of them than there is of our cells.  

00:36:44 Glenn:        Yeah, I know it's kind of freaky.   

00:36:45 Narelle:        I haven't explained that well, but it is, it's like mind bubbling.  

00:36:48 Glenn:        Yeah.

00:36:49 Narelle:        That there's more bacterial cells than human cells in the body.  

00:36:51 Glenn:       Well, that's enough to cook everyone's brains for this episode. 00:36:55 Narelle:        I think it is. So if you've got any questions about SB, you can jump onto the Facebook page, Natural Health for People and Pets. If you wanna give SB a go for your dog, go to the CanineCeuticals website, canineceuticals.com.au. So you can look for Pure SB10. If you wanna email me, you can do that with a couple of emails now, so we've got info@canineceuticals.com au. You've also got narelle@naturalhealthandnutrition.com au. So lots of ways to find me if all else fails.  

00:37:27 Glenn:        Go to your Facebook or your Instagram pages.  

00:37:30 Narelle:        Oh yes. Me, the terrible social media person.  

00:37:32 Glenn:        Yeah I know, you totally neglect social media all the time.  

00:37:37 Narelle:        I have CanineCeuticals Facebook page, and Instagram page. And yeah, The Natural Health for People and Pets Facebook page to support this podcast. This episode has been a real passion of mine. I love gut health, I think gut health, as I've said, is super critical to us and our dogs and I see such huge improvements in my dog clients when we address the foundations of health, which to me starts with the gut. So do check out the resources and have a read on the CanineCeuticals website. Not just about SB, there are a couple of other gut powders that are really fundamental. Like I said, the Gut Protect is what I've had Ladybug on for the last couple of years, which has given her the most awesome poos ever. So if you wanna see if your dog can have awesome poos too.  

00:38:21 Glenn:        <laughs>,  

00:38:22 Narelle:      Grab some Gut Protect. 

00:38:23 Glenn:       But what a way to end the show on, poos.  

00:38:25 Narelle:        Perfect way, thanks everyone. 

00:38:27 Glenn:        Goodbye Everyone. 

00:38:28 Narelle: Bye.