Hey, Eric Bakker, Naturopath.
Thank you for checking out my video.
We can talk about psyllium husks or plantago ovata.
So psyllium is a plant that goes back many thousands of years.
People have used the seeds of this plant for digestive problems going back a long, long
time.
So it's used often to ease gut conditions.
When I first started practicing, a long time ago, in fact, before I started practicing,
I used to work in a health food shop, way back in the '80s, and people would often come
in looking for age to ease their gut, if they had IBS, irritable bowel syndrome or they
had a condition like Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, or like an inflammatory bowel condition.
They're looking for something to settle the tummy down.
So I went off and grabbed a packet of psyllium husks and said, "Here, give this a go Johnny,
like two bucks.
Give this a shot."
So the two key things I'd often recommend when I worked in the shop were slippery elm
bark powder, which comes from a beautiful big elm tree, it's at pink inner bag.
It's that one.
And also the ovata seed, so the psyllium husks or seeds of the husks, okay?
So the difference between the ... If we have a look at the slippery elm bark powder and
the psyllium, the slippery elm bark powder, you put that, it's basically finely ground
powder that you put in water, it swells up, gets a bit sort of like soft and gooey.
It's really nice and soothing for the gut and especially good for inflammatory bowel
condition.
That's the slippery elm.
The psyllium however is more of a bulker, like a stool bulker.
So it sucks up water, it attracts water.
It forms like a nice big mass in the gut and it moves things through nicely.
So some people use it like if there's a one off, if they're constipated here or there,
they might take some psyllium in a glass and if they're traveling for example, drink that
and it will just ease the bowel a little bit more.
My recommendation is not to use it every single day because it can have a bit of an irritating
or scouring action on the gut.
Some of the husks are going to be a little bit sharp inside of the tummy.
For most people, this won't be a problem.
But if you've got diverticulitis, like little bowel pockets, you'll need to be careful consuming
psyllium because I certainly had complaints from people about my age or like 60s, 70s,
who have issues there with their tummy, and they can even get a bit of bowel pain when
they have psyllium.
Rare, but I've seen it happen.
So if you're a little bit older person, I'd probably say be careful with it, especially
if you've got known issues with inflammatory bowel disease like Crohn's especially, and
if you know you have diverticulitis, then I'd just be a little bit on the cautious side
with psyllium, and I'd go more for the slippery elm bark powder.
But most people under say 50 could easily take psyllium quite regularly.
Make sure you have this stuff with plenty of water, and it blends quite well with it.
You can just drink straight down the hatch.
Have it between meals.
Good time to have it often is early in the morning or sort of like mid afternoon-ish,
make sure one good tall glass of water with it.
The people who have benefited best from psyllium obviously are the water drinkers.
If you're a coffee, tea drink and don't drink water at all or much, don't take psyllium
because the caffeine can have a dehydrating effect, and you can get a bit blocked up if
you're not lubricated on the inside.
And the other last thing I'll leave you with this, is it's a prebiotic.
So what I've also noticed is people who regularly take slippery elm back powder and things like
this particular psyllium husk, they tend to have high bifidobacteria counts than people
who don't have them.
So I certainly noticed a correlation in the stool test results on people taking psyllium
as opposed to people who don't regularly take psyllium.
So it is a prebiotic and it feeds the good bacteria.
So that's a little explanation on psyllium there for you.
The other last thing, the very last thing is be careful with buying some products like
metamucil psyllium husk because they can contain a lot of artificial sugars in them.
Okay?
And that's why people like to take it because it tastes sweet.
So metamucil is not really a good product in my opinion because of the artificial sugars.
If you're going to take psyllium, buy straight psyllium from the health food shop.
All right?
Thanks for tuning in.