Ep.141 Decoding Methylation and Histamine Intolerance: Naturopathic & Self-Care Insights with Joanne Kennedy

Are you navigating the ups and downs of midlife, dealing with unexplained symptoms, hormonal changes, or feeling dismissed by traditional medicine? This podcast episode is your essential guide to understanding and overcoming midlife health struggles. Join naturopath Joanne Kennedy as she shares empowering insights into menopause, gut health, and personalized wellness strategies tailored specifically for women in their 40s and beyond.

Discover how overlooked factors like the MTHFR gene and hidden issues like histamine intolerance could be affecting your health. Learn practical, holistic approaches to:

• Decode your body’s signals and what they may mean
• Understand the crucial connection between your gut and hormones
• Know which tests to ask for when seeking help from your doctor
• Get to the root of stubborn symptoms that seem to have no explanation

Joanne simplifies complex health topics into easy-to-follow advice, drawing from her expertise in Histamine Intolerance. Whether you're dealing with fatigue, mood swings, digestive discomfort, or other mysterious issues, this episode offers real solutions and hope to help you reclaim your energy and vitality.

Take charge of your health in midlife – your body deserves not just treatment, but understanding and care.

You can find Joanne Kennedy at:
Website
Instagram
YouTube
Her Offerings

Direct Labs Website

_________________________________________
Are you ready to reclaim your midlife body and health? I went through my own personal journey through menopause, the struggle with midsection weight gain, and feeling rundown. Faster Way, a transformative six-week group program, set me on the path to sustainable change. I'd love to work with you! Let me help you reach your health and fitness goals.
https://www.fasterwaycoach.com/?aid=MicheleFolan

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mfolanfasterway@gmail.com

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*Transcripts are done with AI and may not be perfectly accurate.

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Chapters

• 0:04 Exploring Health and Wellness Mysteries
• 5:32 Understanding Histamine Intolerance and MTHFR
• 16:30 Understanding Histamine Intolerance and Oxalates
• 27:01 Addressing Gut Health Issues and Testing
• 40:16 Global Functional Medicine Practice and Self-Care

Transcript

Michele Folan: 0:04

Health, wellness, fitness and everything in between. We're removing the taboo from what really matters in midlife. I'm your host, Michele Folan, and this is Asking for a Friend. Welcome to the show. Everyone On Asking for a Friend. We explore all things health and wellness and the mysteries of our bodies.

Michele Folan: 0:30

For many women, the symptoms of menopause can feel like an unpredictable roller coaster, but what's even more challenging is that we may have symptoms that masquerade as menopause, and it's something totally unrelated. How do we know? From fatigue, mood swings, joint pain and even digestive issues? Menopause can mimic a wide range of other health concerns, leaving women confused, frustrated and searching for answers. Joanne Kennedy is a naturopath and specialist in histamine intolerance, mthfr and methylation. Joanne runs a successful practice in Sydney, Australia, and sees patients online globally. Joanne's approach is to identify the root cause of illness. As a histamine and methylation specialist, joanne is well-versed in the areas of gut health, oscillate toxicity and women's hormonal health. Joanne is also the creator of the Histamine Intolerance Masterclass, an online educational course that empowers those with histamine issues with the knowledge they need to heal. She also leads an online group coaching program educating fellow practitioners on histamine and methylation. Joanne Kennedy, welcome to Asking for a Friend.

Joanne Kennedy: 1:48

Hi Michele. Thank you so much for having me on your show.

Michele Folan: 1:51

It's just delightful to have you here and your accent's beautiful. It's always enchanting Americans, love it Americans love Australia.

Joanne Kennedy: 2:01

It's so funny Americans love Australians. You don't have to do anything except talk.

Michele Folan: 2:08

Oh, if life were that easy, right? Yeah, yeah, and I was sharing with Joanne before we hit record that I know very, very little about her specialty and that is why I wanted her on the show, because we've touched on histamine intolerance and MTHFR on occasion, but we've never dug into it as a separate topic. So I'm going to back up. I would love for you to just tell the audience a little bit about you, where you're from, any kind of family details, where you went to school.

Joanne Kennedy: 2:44

So I'm born and bred in Sydney, Australia, and I still currently live in Sydney and I didn't start studying naturopathy until I was 32, which seems so young now that I'm 49. But at the time I thought I was very old, a two-year-old student, and I sort of you know I got into naturopathy out of necessity, of hating corporate and needing to do something different. That's the truth of how it was at the time. Yes, I was interested in it, but it was the fact that I wanted to move out of corporate and find something more meaningful that led me to that. And so I started studying nutritional medicine and then I became really interested in herbal medicine. So I swapped to the naturopathy degree, which also includes herbal medicine, and I loved my study. I did a five-year degree.

Joanne Kennedy: 3:35

It was a very long time, and during that time I was exposed to the world of methylation just from working at a health food store where the practitioners there would be talking about under-methylation, over-methylation. I'm like, what are you talking about? And they sort of explained to me what it was. And at that same time, ben Lynch, who a lot of your listeners would know, in the MTHFR methylation space in the US he owns Seeking Health those products. He was doing online training regarding on methylation. So I did all of that training when I was studying on the side, which was the best thing I did, because when I graduated, a lady in Sydney opened a clinic specializing in methylation.

Joanne Kennedy: 4:17

So I was very fortunate that straight out of college I had a job, because as a naturopath, often you graduate and there's no job. You have to create your own work and it's very hard because, well, it's hard to create a business and it's hard to learn because you don't have mentors. I was fortunate enough to go and work there and that's where I was also exposed to the whole world of histamine. So that was sort of my journey. Is that? I was. It was kind of a combination of hard work, right time and luck that led me into a really specialized niche area. That I believe, and I will stand up in front of a room full of practitioners and say you need to understand methylation, histamine, to be a good practitioner, to really understand what's going on with your patient's health. Okay, because it's foundational, it's understanding the biochemistry and it's the way that I look at it offers histamine and methylation offers a really unique framework regarding how you see patients and it's getting to the deep, deep root causes of illness in the patient base that we see.

Michele Folan: 5:26

Okay, so I have to. Just all right, let's back up. So histamine intolerance and MTHFR are they related at all in this realm of medicine?

Joanne Kennedy: 5:41

Yeah, what we need to understand first of all is that MTHFR is just one gene, one enzyme in the body. So I think Michelle will talk about MTHFR now. I think we need to sort of explain what it is, because there's a lot of hype and misunderstanding around it. The MTHFR gene it provides the code for the MTHFR enzyme in the body to work and what that enzyme does. It takes folate from your food and it converts it into methylfolate, and methylfolate is the type of folate that's used in a really big biochemical pathway called methylation. There are many other genes and enzymes and nutrients that are involved in that pathway. So you might have a mutation on MTHFR, whereby you can have a reduction in how your body makes methylfolate, but it's only one part of the picture. Okay, so you might have a mutation on MTHFR, but it might not be expressing, it might not be causing any problems, okay, but in combination with things like B12 deficiency and protein deficiency and oxalates can disrupt methylation.

Joanne Kennedy: 6:50

A lot of things disrupt methylation, which is good to know, because these are the things we can fix, and what we need to know about methylation as a whole is that methylation breaks down histamine. It's one of the ways the body gets rid of histamine. So that's how it's related. So MTHFR on its own isn't just related to. Just because you've got an MTHFR gene mutation doesn't mean you've got histamine intolerance. But if you have methylation issues whereby the whole pathways are out of whack, a lot of the causes of why that pathway is not working are the things that drive up histamine. That's just interesting side note. Right, they do. A lot of the things that disrupt methylation increase histamine in the body and then at the same time, if your methylation is not working properly, you will have issues breaking down histamine. Okay, does that make sense?

Michele Folan: 7:46

Yes, it does. It does. What would make me go to my doctor if I have a histamine intolerance?

Joanne Kennedy: 7:56

Yeah, so I'm going to go through all the symptoms, because there's many. It will be all the allergy, the rhinitis, sinusitis, hay fever kind of symptoms, respiratory symptoms like wheezing, shortness of breath, asthma. In the gut it actually causes reflux and heartburn. That's not a very well-known symptom but it does. It will cause loose stools, diarrhea. It can cause abdominal bloating pain.

Joanne Kennedy: 8:24

It definitely causes skin issues, so itchy skin, red skin, hives, eczema, acne. It gets into the brain and causes headaches, migraines, dizziness, vertigo, anxiety, depression, insomnia and an inability to regulate your body temperature. And it also plays havoc with estrogen. So histamine can increase the body's estrogen and at the same time estrogen stimulates mast cells to release histamine and it also stimulates the nerve cells. They're called histaminergic neurons in the brain. They have estrogen receptors and estrogen can increase the firing of histamine in the brain. They have estrogen receptors and estrogen can increase the firing of histamine in the brain, causing those neurological issues. So they're the symptoms of high histamine.

Joanne Kennedy: 9:11

Okay, so often, unfortunately, you go to your GP and, unless it's a simple allergy kind of symptom, where they might give you an antihistamine, is that they don't actually know that that is a histamine symptom. Unfortunately, okay, they won't know If you went to the doctor and had reflux and heartburn, they're going to put you on a proton pump inhibitor medication. Yeah, and not look at histamine. If you have migraines, they're not even going to consider histamine. If you have anxiety, they're not going to consider histamine. They won't know about it.

Michele Folan: 9:45

So and I'm thinking of someone that is in my family who has eczema, gets migraines and you know then like my mind starts going a hundred miles an hour, right, yeah, so if I suspect that this is something that's going on with me, how would I go about getting tested for this?

Joanne Kennedy: 10:11

Okay. So what we have to understand about histamine, it's a symptom of an underlying cause. Okay, so the main causes of high histamine are SIBO small intestinal bacterial overgrowth it's a major cause of irritable bowel syndrome. So any sort of gut issue can point to SIBO. Simply having digestive enzyme insufficiency, because there are a lot of. So if you don't break down your food properly, it can sit rotten, ferment in the gut. That will release histamine. So that's a big cause. Now, gluten can cause a lot of havoc in the gut and that will release histamine. So that's a big cause. Now, gluten can cause a lot of havoc in the gut and release a lot of histamine. We've also got oxalates and I'll talk more about those later. But having high oxalate can cause histamine. Mold is a major major cause of high histamine. Mold's everywhere. I see a lot of American patients with mold illness. Estrogen increases histamine.

Michele Folan: 11:06

Are you saying estrogen? Yeah, estrogen, Okay. When you said it, you said it before and I'm like I think she said estrogen.

Joanne Kennedy: 11:14

Yeah, yeah, we even spell it differently, I know, yeah, estrogen. So they're some of the main causes of high histamine. So look, there is a blood test. You can do whole blood histamine. It can show what your histamine levels are like in your blood, but it doesn't necessarily mean if your histamine levels come back normal in your blood. It basically means that you're methylating and you're breaking it down in the blood, but you can have histamine in the gut that's not being broken down properly because you don't have the dow enzyme, which is the other enzyme that breaks down histamine. So even if you do a blood test for histamine, I've seen people with low histamine in their blood and they've cut, they've got hives and migraines, and so it's not. It's not a definitive test. So we need to understand that it's symptoms that say, wow, I think I have a histamine issue, and so your listeners can just go back and write down all the symptoms that I just mentioned and even if you've got one of those symptoms, it's likely histamine. If you've got two or three or four, then it's very yeah, and understanding this can help pinpoint what testing needs to be done and what. So if we think it's SIBO, we do a SIBO test. If we think it's oxalates, we do an organic acids test that picks up oxalates. Mold.

Joanne Kennedy: 12:38

We need to investigate for mold. Is there mold in the house? Is there dampness in the house? Things like that, right? Are my hormones out of balance? Perimenopause, for sure. That rollercoaster can cause a lot of histamine symptoms in women, exacerbate pre-existing histamine symptoms or they can arise for the first time. Okay, so yeah, that's the broad sort of range of symptoms and then underlying the root causes. But shall I just say, if your patients are interested, my website's got lots of information on like the causes and the different things that cause histamine. My e-book's got all the causes, how you test all the symptoms, so you can go to your general practitioner and say, hey, like, look, I think I've got this. Will you help me get the testing done and hopefully covered by your insurance, things like that. But you will not. This is the fact. You will not find the answers in allopathic medicine.

Michele Folan: 13:33

Yeah, Does this sound familiar? When menopause hit, I didn't fully comprehend what was happening to my body. Even though I was eating 1,200 calories a day, doing the elliptical at the gym and going to multiple cycling classes during the week, the scale was not budging and my genes were getting tighter. I was frustrated and wanted to do better for my long-term health and, with my 26 years in the health industry, I knew this was not the path I wanted to follow. So I started doing research on several online programs, but most were either fitness or nutrition-based, but not both. What I needed was a platform that understood the needs and challenges of women my age and had the data to prove it. While scrolling through Instagram one day, I stumbled upon Faster Way. Their science-backed strategy spoke to me and I decided to give it a go and invest in myself and my future health. I was 59 years old and full of hope, and I did go into it, knowing that I had to be patient, and the improved mindset did pay off. My results got me really excited to share Faster Way with other women who were struggling like I was, so I decided to get trained and certified as a coach.

Michele Folan: 14:52

Call it self-care, call it prioritizing your health. When are you going to tell yourself enough is enough and that you matter? Don't allow your past failures with other diets and programs to keep you from making one of the most important decisions for your future. I'd love to work with you. Reach out by DMing me on social media or at the email address in the show notes of this episode. And that's the thing.

Michele Folan: 15:20

Here in the US, allopathic medicine is covered on our insurance, but when we go the route of functional medicine, integrative health, many times those visits are not covered by insurance. The testing often is, but it's the actual visits. And I know a lot of people who have given up on allopathic medicine and are now paying out of pocket going to functional medicine practitioners because they are so frustrated with hey, we'll just give you Nexium or something for your gut, we'll give you cream for your eczema. Nexium or you know something for your gut will give you cream for your eczema and no one's really finding out why you're having these symptoms. I want to back up Joanne, because you brought up SIBO and I have had a couple gut experts on the show, not speaking of SIBO as it relates to histamine intolerance, but when they test for SIBO, how does that test usually work?

Joanne Kennedy: 16:27

Yeah, SIBO is a breath test. Okay. So you use a substrate it's usually lactulose, lactulose. You have the lactulose. It sort of feeds, mobilizes the bacteria that's overgrown in the small intestine and then those bacteria release gases. So the gases get picked up in the breath test. So the gases are going to be methane or hydrogen and this is how you get histamine problems.

Joanne Kennedy: 16:58

Is, the gases cause inflammation? Well, the gases cause the bloating that's a classic sign of SIBO, and flatulence and belching is bloating the gas. The gas causes inflammation and it releases histamine. Histamine just gets released when there's inflammation, Michele. This is why it's so widespread. Chronic illness is inflammation and inflammation releases histamine.

Joanne Kennedy: 17:18

So it's just, it's so common, it's crazy common and it's so baffling to me that I could be a student at naturopathic college, come out of study, learned for two years with a specialist in this field, and go out and have a, grow a business within a year where I'm fully booked out and have patients all online all over the world. That's insane. Yeah, like that's just. That's not because I'm a good business person, it's just not. That's just because there is such a need for this, it's so common and no one really understands it. It's it's baffling to me yeah, it should it, should it should. It's like how can I? I feel lucky, I'm like, wow, like I actually can specialize in something that's so needed. And why isn't this market not flooded with at least allopathic doctors understanding that they're not treating the root cause?

Michele Folan: 18:10

They're just simply not so no, they just want to put a bandaid on things and and not and not really dig in because they don't have time. They don't have time. They book their patients, you know, every 10, 15 minutes and they're not able to really have that kind of relationship or interaction with patients. And I should mention SIBO is small intestine bacterial overgrowth, just so listeners realize. You mentioned gluten as a possible cause, and so that goes beyond just having a gluten sensitivity. It actually can cause some of these issues as well.

Joanne Kennedy: 19:01

Huh, so there's three main ways that gluten can cause high histamine. One, simply if you are a celiac. Because when you're a celiac especially if you're late diagnosed celiac and you've been exposed to gluten for a long time it blunts the microvilli, the tiny little hairs in the gut. Those hairs excrete, they store and release the Dow enzyme and the Dow enzyme breaks down histamine that is being made in the gut. So you will just have not enough Dow enzyme period. Like it's gone, your microvilli are gone and so that is a big problem for celiacs. Then you can have just non-celiac gluten sensitivity, which is in Australia and America in most instances, because our wheat is just modified, tampered with crap.

Joanne Kennedy: 19:55

I was in crap, crap. I was in France for two months and I ate baguettes. I ate bread, three baguettes all day, every day, and nothing happened to me. I was not bloated, didn't feel tired, nothing. Come back here. There's just no way. So basically, humans lack the enzymes to break down gluten.

Joanne Kennedy: 20:14

It's highly inflammatory to the gut in all humans, I think when we're young and stuff, we get away with it. Classic sign of not tolerating gluten. It's not just gut issues, it's headaches, migraines, eczema, anxiety, depression, fatigue, low iron. People will say to me I'm fine on it. I'm like I can see that you're not, yeah, yeah, so it. What happens with gluten is that it's the cells of the gut are held together, what's called the tight junctions, and then I think of them like a shoelace. They open and close to allow food and electrolytes and your minerals to move into the blood where they're meant to. It's held together by something called zonulin, and gluten dissembles zonulin, it damages it and you release zonulin. You can test this in a stool test. You can say, wow, you've got a lot of zonulin in your poop. You have a leaky gut, hyperpermeable.

Michele Folan: 21:09

Okay, so that's leaky gut.

Joanne Kennedy: 21:10

Okay, yeah, okay, that's leaky gut, right, and it is a real thing, and people will say it's not, but it really is a real thing. And then what can happen is gluten will get into the bloodstream. Now, when it's bad, when you have the celiac gene, that's what causes celiac disease. But if you don't have celiac disease, well, it's just the immune system is reactive to gluten and it can release a lot of histamine. Okay, and then we've got also wheat allergies. So wheat allergy is interesting because the gluten so bread you know, this is what we're really talking about the gluten dissembles the tight junctions and then the wheat gets through into where when it shouldn't into the bloodstream, and you can create a hypersensititivity, an immunoglobulin antibody reaction to wheat. Oh, so you can become.

Joanne Kennedy: 21:59

That's when people are almost anaphylactic to eat. It causes it like people, will people get wheezing and and their throat will close over. It will be like a peanut allergy, like a severe allergy. I don't see this a lot in clinic because allopathy will pick that up, because it's a medical emergency. So there's celiac, there's just gluten. How it dissembles tight junctions gluten, how it damages the gut, releases inflammation. That will cause inflammation, release histamine, and then there's the weight component as well.

Michele Folan: 22:30

So yeah, okay. Wow, and I've heard other people say the same thing that you mentioned about going to another country eating bread and also having wine and other things too, because our wine is crap. Sorry, they put so much added stuff. You know we don't have the food purity laws like they do in other countries, but I've heard the same thing that they were able to eat and drink a lot of the things that they normally would not be able to have or enjoy here, so I thought that was interesting.

Joanne Kennedy: 23:06

No, it's very true. So, people, it's the first thing you need to think about how much gluten you're consuming and if it's causing health issues, because it most likely is contributing yeah, okay, I have really.

Michele Folan: 23:18

Since I started doing health coaching, I had really cut down on my gluten. I eat very, very little, unless I'm like at a restaurant, and yeah, yeah, same really. They have a really yummy bread, yeah yeah, I will do that.

Joanne Kennedy: 23:35

I save it for those occasions.

Michele Folan: 23:38

Right. Okay, I want to ask about oxalates. So my knowledge of oxalates is spinach and I've been told, because I have osteoporosis, that I should stay away from oscillates because it can inhibit easy for me to say, inhibit the bone formation of bone, yeah, yeah.

Joanne Kennedy: 24:05

So tell me how oxalates impact histamine intolerance okay, should I first talk about what oxalates are and how the body makes them and why we've got a problem with them. Okay, so oxalates, first of all, they are in all plant foods at some level. Okay, so plants make oxalate. Some are very low and then we go right through to very high, spinach being a very high oxalate food, for instance. So foods have a.

Joanne Kennedy: 24:36

Plant foods contain oxalates and the human body does make oxalate. It's part of the breakdown of collagen. It, the amino acids glycine and hydroxyproline will get converted into oxalate in the liver and then they get excreted in the urine. It's, it's part of our biochemistry. So humans make it now when it comes to the gut and the get excreted in the urine.

Joanne Kennedy: 24:57

And the dietary component of oxalate is that humans lack the enzymes to break down oxalate in the food. So we rely on our microbiome to do that. So if our microbiome is dysbiotic and disrupted which is just every human in the Western world stress, herbicides, pesticides all of that disrupt the gut microbiome. What can happen is you're consuming a lot of oxalate foods, or even not a lot, just a normal amount nuts and seeds, sweet potatoes, spinaches and healthy foods, and your gut microbiome can't break it down properly and oxalates form. Well, they are sharp, tiny little crystals and they deposit in the gut, they get through into the bloodstream, they'll get into the joints and they do really get a lot into the bladder and the urinary system, because that's how, once in the blood urinary system, because that's how, once in the blood, they go into the liver and the kidneys for excretion rather than the bowels. And this is why classic oxalate symptoms are bladder pain, interstitial cystitis, vulvodynia, and it causes inflammation because they're sharp and they cause pain and that will release a lot of histamine.

Michele Folan: 26:13

Okay, this makes sense. Yeah, yeah, okay, and they cause a lot.

Joanne Kennedy: 26:18

They cause havoc in the body. They also this is important to understand they actually can deplete the body of sulfur, and sulfur is the second most abundant element in our body. It's so important for so many things, but so many things okay, everything really, including one big thing is that they make glutathione, and glutathione is your body's major antioxidant, so it helps get on top of inflammation. So oxalates are really bad because they not only cause so much inflammation, they not only cause so much inflammation, they inhibit your ability to deal with inflammation and they also disrupt methylation.

Joanne Kennedy: 27:01

Okay, so they are something that when I see a lot of, when people come to me they might've done a gene test, hormone testing, sibo testing, stool test and they've done an organic acids test. The first thing I'll look for is oxalates, stool tests and I've done an organic acids test. The first thing I look for is oxalates. That's most likely the major cause of your problem. And one more thing we need to know about oxalates is a lot of mold species contain oxalate as well. Ah, okay, okay, so that that and I have can't tell you how many times I've seen physicians whatever, whoever they are tell their patients to do an organic acids test and they have high oxalate and it's ignored and it's always something that has to be dealt with as an absolute priority.

Michele Folan: 27:44

All right, so the oxalates and you're saying oxalates, I'm saying oxalates Again. It's how we say things differently. It's again it's how we say things differently. It's funny, isn't it? That's okay, yeah, I'm just. I'm just laughing, just how we say things differently. But all right, how do you test? Is it a blood test for oxalates? It's a urine test yeah okay, you're in your it's a urine test.

Joanne Kennedy: 28:13

So organic houses test is um. You know the mosaic labs in the us is the leading it's the best lab in the world for organic acids test, so americans can definitely get that done. So that's, it's an. It's an. It's a. It's an a. There's a lot of other markers in that test. It's a really great test to get done to see. But oxalates are the hidden cause of chronic. You know they're a major cause of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. Oh my gosh, this stuff's just. Michele, you wouldn't believe. If you sat with me for a week in clinic, you just wouldn't believe this is fascinating.

Joanne Kennedy: 28:49

It's actually just. It's just like the whole medical industry is just so corrupt from the top down and I'm not one of these like conspiracy theory naturopaths, it's just. I've just seen it like it's just so bad, and you know this is another thing I have to say it. This happens in America a lot. You wait like two months to get an appointment with a functional medicine doctor. They make you do like two thousand dollars worth of testing before they see you, like they don't even know what's wrong with you first, so they get you to do all this testing and then they're like if they'd sat with you for 10 minutes and ask you questions around your symptoms, maybe you just do one test, but people I see Americans where they're doing spent $2,000 on functional medicine testing whereby there's no case taken before they do it. It's bad, it's really bad.

Michele Folan: 29:40

So anyway, do you ever have patients come to you that have had DNA testing first?

Joanne Kennedy: 29:46

I do it's an absolute waste of time and money. It's not your genes, it's the environment. It is just this is a bugbear of mine and I know I do MTHFR and all of that, but I'm really. You know, I set people straight with it. It's not a gene, it's the environment that is disrupting your enzyme functioning in your body. So you do a gene test and it's like everyone has mutations on all of these different genes that we're looking at.

Joanne Kennedy: 30:13

You wouldn't leave the house If you went and sat down and looked at it all and what it all meant. It's like oh, I can't go outside, I can't be exposed to sunlight, I can't be exposed to any toxins. It's clinically useless waste of money. It's just because what are we going to do about it? It's like wow, we actually need. People will say oh like. People's argument to me is you might have SNPs on your glutathione genes and therefore you shouldn't be exposed to mold and you shouldn't be exposed to mercury. I'm like no one should and it doesn't. It's like well, you can have no gene mutation on those genes and you are eating tuna all day. You'll have big problems with mercury and big problems with detoxification or you simply are in mold and that will be a big problem for you, or you're eating glyphosate all day long, so it's the environment. So where you need to spend your money is with the testing that shows us the root causes of your problems.

Michele Folan: 31:12

All right, if I come to you and I've got, I've had diarrhea, I have eczema, bloating. What tests would you probably say? Let's do this first.

Joanne Kennedy: 31:25

Yeah, I definitely do SIBO testing. So SIBO absolutely causes a lot of bloating and it can cause loose stools, diarrhea. Okay, I would also. First of all, I'd just be like looking at your diet how much gluten are you eating? Because absolutely gluten can do that. Okay, if you're getting diarrhea and bloating, definitely SIBO would be and the eczema SIBO would be the first test that I would do for that.

Michele Folan: 31:54

All right, and then what? So say, my test comes back and it is positive for SIBO I do. The breath test is what you were suggesting. Then what would the treatment be for that?

Joanne Kennedy: 32:08

So the really interesting thing about SIBO is that it takes healthy plant foods. This is why it gets very confusing for people. They're called FODMAPs, fodmap foods. Fodmap foods are healthy plant foods and they are the foods that the SIBO bacteria convert into the gases. So you actually need to remove these FODMAP foods from your diet. Now whilst and then we do herbal medicine to help. You know, it's very simple. If you have methane, sibo allicin, which is an active constituent of garlic, is very good for methane. If you have hydrogen, sibo, berberine is very good for that. Very simple, like the herbal medicine.

Joanne Kennedy: 32:49

Choices are quite simple. Okay, we definitely need digestive enzymes. When you have SIBO, it causes an acidic environment in the small intestine. That means you need some pancreatic enzymes and probably some hydrochloric acid in your digestive enzymes. And you do that At the same time to get your symptoms down quickly, you do a SIBO low histamine diet. So you it's SIBO and low histamine. That often helps with your symptoms, really, really quickly getting your symptoms down. And then you treat SIBO for about three months and then we watch the signs. You know, basically, if it's just SIBO, you will feel so much better in a week, two weeks, okay, okay, and then it's just SIBO. It is, then it's just. I always say to my patients then it's just boring for three months of boring, boring diet.

Michele Folan: 33:44

But it's not that bad. It's just. That's what I was afraid you were going to say. Yeah.

Joanne Kennedy: 33:50

It's just hard, look, it's just. It's just just, you can't have onion and garlic, which is hard for eating out at restaurants and things like that. But you know, you can get on top of SIBO, naturally, in most instances. Sometimes there's some hindrances around it, but yeah, so SIBO is pretty straightforward.

Michele Folan: 34:09

GI test specialist person, gut health person, and she was telling me about onion and garlic and I was like whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, do you know what I cook with every single night?

Joanne Kennedy: 34:32

I say to my look, I you know, Michele, it's funny I have patients that would give their right arm to eat their way out of their health issues because they're on methotrexate and corticosteroids and they're so sick. So I kind of do say that to my patients and I also say look, you can eat carrots, you can eat some broccoli, you can have fresh animal protein, you can have all your fresh herbs and spices. Some people have no food. Through. To tell you what, when gut issues get that bad, if you don't, if you, if you ignore it, so if you've got SIBO and an oxalate problem, you can cause such havoc in your gut that your immune system just goes berserk and it's very hard to calm down in a pissed off immune system. I'm sorry if I say that that way.

Michele Folan: 35:15

Oh, we've said much worse on this show, don't you worry Sorry.

Joanne Kennedy: 35:19

And it will just cause havoc. And then what happens is you have end up with multiple food intolerances. These people eat chicken and rice. You should see, some people can't eat anything but chicken and rice because they've ignored these things and haven't done the thing. I know it's hard and boring and I love food. I love food. But it's just, if you really take it seriously and do it for three months, you just turn your health around and then and you know the thing with SIBO it causes iron deficiency, it causes B12 deficiency, folate iodine deficiency. So that affects your methylation, it affects your energy, your mood, your thyroid, everything.

Michele Folan: 36:02

Does it affect like proper absorption of nutrition too? Yeah, because I think women in midlife worry about the fact that they're not absorbing nutrients and it affecting their bone health. Yes, you know, getting osteoporosis, that type of thing too. I know that's a huge fear.

Joanne Kennedy: 36:21

Yes, absolutely, that's right. The really interesting thing about these chronic health issues like oxalates oxalates deplete the body of electrolytes, okay, so when you become more acidic than alkaline to get to alkalize your blood, you pull calcium and magnesium from your bones. So that's a big problem. Yeah, and when it comes to oxalates, um, oxalates, I bet you oxalates are so bad, I bet you've actually damaged bone and they also use up a lot of calcium. So oxalates deplete the body of calcium and magnesium. They will cause a more acidic environment in your blood.

Joanne Kennedy: 37:00

You can test that at the anion gap on a blood test. When you do your electrolytes sodium, potassium, etc. You they'll often do anion gap. It shouldn't be over 10 or 12. When it's heading up to 15, 16, 17, if you you have, you are, your blood is tending to be more acidic. It's not acidosis, which is a medical emergency, which more is like kidney malfunction, but it's telling us you are depleting your calcium and magnesium. Calcium runs your heart, right. So your body's like need calcium, bones, bones, bones. Classic symptom there's a symptom of electrolyte imbalance is actually muscle cramps and people will say to me I get muscle cramps, I have magnesium, I like you need calcium as well. Okay, right, you need. You need sort of a good electrolyte, calcium and magnesium. So that's sort of how that works is whereby it's the acidity which is leaching calcium magnesium from bone. All right, I bet you oxalates damage bone. They get into the brain, they get into the thyroid. They're really bad.

Michele Folan: 38:01

This is so fascinating. Again. I mean, my mind is going a million miles an hour and I wanted you to be here because I really think that my mission is. I want women to be advocates for themselves, that they know what questions to ask. They know what blood tests to ask for. I had a friend text me the other day and she said I asked for all these different blood tests that I've heard experts on your show and you talk about. You know different thyroid tests and that sort of thing. And she said I got so much pushback from my doctor and I even had to sign a waiver saying that I would pay for these if the insurance didn't pay for them. But she said I stood my ground, I went toe to toe with them and they let her get all that blood work. Yes, but you know what? That doesn't happen all the time, joanne, you know, and it's sad.

Joanne Kennedy: 39:02

No, I know it's the same here. You know we as taxpayers we should be able to get a lot of bloods just done, standard bloods, but to try and get a full thyroid panel done it's impossible. The doctors refuse. I had a friend. She's actually got thyroid cancer right and the doctors would not run a full thyroid panel for her and she just my friend was at the. She's also going through menopause, right, so she just breaks down crying. She was either I was going to scream and yell or was going to cry. She goes I think I better cry, so she just starts crying.

Joanne Kennedy: 39:39

You say you're, you're meant to be here to help me. You, you make you're not helping me. Yeah, I'm like wow, like really they're, they're not helping. So it's bloods are so blood tests are so useful, they're so useful at helping identify root causes of illness. You know and um, yeah, I mean, look, it's a, I get it. It's a disaster in the us. I know, with the testing and stuff it's really really hard and it's expensive. You know the direct labs, directlabscom. You can go and order all your labs direct from them, bypass the doctor, directlabscom okay, they're great, I'm writing that one down.

Joanne Kennedy: 40:16

Yeah, I was looking at that for a patient yesterday and she needs to do all her. She's in late perimenopause. I'm like I don't know what FSH and LH like. Is it just because you can just not ovulate in late 48, 49 because of stress and she's very stressed? I want to see what FSH and LH are. But they did a full female metabolic panel with hormones, so insulin and vitamin D and all these things. You could get that test done. And I said to her maybe your insurance company will just cover some of the testing from a lab directly without going to the doctor. I'm not sure. Yeah, you can in America, of course you guys, you can do, you can get that stuff done yourself.

Michele Folan: 40:59

I'm going to put that in the show notes. Yeah, so I do have a question. So how do you work with clients? Because you said you work with, obviously, clients there, patients there in Australia but how do you work with them globally?

Joanne Kennedy: 41:15

Yeah, so I'll just talk about the US Canada. It's via Zoom, very simple, and the good thing about the US and Canada is that the testing I need to get done, be it the organic acids testing and mold mycotoxins testing, I can order that direct from Australia. So the labs are in the United States Mosaic Labs and I've got an account with them so I can just get that testing done. That's really easy. Sibo testing you can order through direct labs and if you need to get some like some well, a bit obscure bloods done that your doctor won't run, or if you know people I don't want to go to my doctor, I don't like them, it's pain you can just get these done. Bloods done direct.

Joanne Kennedy: 42:02

Okay, so that's all simple. I've sorted that all out because I've had I've got so many north, I've got so many Americans, Michele, like they're desperate for help, being honest, and like they can see me for consoles, and I'll just let them know I get like you pay Australian dollars. It's like half American dollars. Do you know what I mean Really? Yeah, well, our dollar is so weak Like we get like 60 cents to the US dollar, wow, all right.

Michele Folan: 42:23

Yeah, so it's much cheaper.

Joanne Kennedy: 42:25

Yeah, okay. So that's just so that they know. And regarding supplements is simple, because you guys can just order supplements from Thorne or Pure Encapsulations, Research Nutritionals. I've got an account with them. You, you need an account, someone to have an account. I've got an account with them. So it's very, very simple, right? So north America is super simple. Gets a bit harder in sort of other countries because of, like, the lack of functional medicine testing, but all the, all the labs are coming out of the us. And this is the thing thing with America is like, because I can say this Do you know how much I love America? It's like my favorite thing. I love it. I love Americans, but you all have the best and worst of everything. Do you know what I mean?

Michele Folan: 43:05

No shit.

Joanne Kennedy: 43:10

It's like the worst, like the whole medical system is really bad, but you have the best doctors and you have the best functional medicine testing and you have the best supplement companies. You have it all there, but it's just not because it's such. There's 350, what million people. It's just it's like it's actually a small component, but it's all there. Yeah, so we, when we need, when I've got the chronically ill patients in australia, I'm like we need to send your testing to America. You need to get the supplements from America. It's all there for you guys, yeah.

Michele Folan: 43:43

Okay, well, and that gives me hope, right, that people can start to get some answers to these nagging things that are. It's perplexing, you know, when you've been to the doctor four or five times and no one is giving you answers. This is just so much more proactive. Yeah, but just addressing the core problem, addressing the issue, rather than just covering it up with a pharmaceutical. I mean and I everybody knows this, but I came from the pharmaceutical industry. I spent 26 plus years in in the pharmaceutical and med device world and enjoyed my time there very much. But now I'm seeing it through a different lens, having been doing this podcast, and it's it's really opened my eyes. I have a personal question for you, Joanne. Yeah, sure, what is one of your pillars of self-care? What do you do for yourself, do you?

Joanne Kennedy: 44:42

Know what? Lately it's been journaling. So in the morning I do some little meditation. I love that, but I do this journaling, so it's just getting my journal out and just writing down thoughts Apparently. Look, I do it for like five, 10 minutes, but if you are really having some hard times, 20 minutes of journaling and then apparently you just rip it up, burn it every day. So I find it really really therapeutic, just like getting brain dump on the page and then on with my day and I find myself craving it. I even bought like really pretty little journals and like little, just making it a real ritual for myself.

Michele Folan: 45:27

Yeah, I think that's nice, and I hear people journaling. I don't do that, but the more I hear, I think it's very valuable.

Joanne Kennedy: 45:38

Yeah, it's very valuable. Look, I've got friends of mine who go through so hard times seeing psychologists and stuff and that's part of their actual treatment. Okay, speaking to a patient yesterday, she's a naturopath too. Actually she was talking about there's a doctor, he's American, I can't remember his name, but he specialises in pain and part of his treatment is 20 minutes of journalling every morning because the pain is emotional and I believe in all this stuff.

Joanne Kennedy: 46:07

Michelle, the more I work with practitioners and like I know what I'm I've done it for 12 years now like that's all I do, right, the functional medicine and all that. When I'm listening to my patients, I'm like where's the stress and trauma coming from? Because it causes ill health. It really does. I believe that it does. So much of what I do now is like I will refer some people just need to like do some meditation.

Joanne Kennedy: 46:29

Some people need to like go for a walk every day. Some people need therapy. Some people need emotional freedom technique. They need work, they need somatic work. They need to see a trauma therapist. It just where's it coming from? So, um, but I believe journaling is just something that is actually being used with psychotherapists and staff as part of a treatment for someone's uh problem. So it's, it's um, it's just something that's come into my awareness. I just started doing it a few months ago as just a bit of fun, and I was just sitting in the morning with my coffee looking out at the water. I'm like I just want to write down some thoughts. And then it started, and then I was like, oh, I'm addicted to this, and now it's just become a nice routine.

Michele Folan: 47:12

Yeah, that's really great. Thank you for mentioning that. I think you may influence some folks listening to the podcast to really kind of explore that as a means to just really gather your thoughts and sometimes writing it out, you can kind of sort things in your head, I believe. Yeah, and it's also like a brain dump. It's just like a brain dump, yeah, yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love that. That's so great.

Joanne Kennedy: 47:38

And you can give it up. You know I, you can just give it all up to God as well. Just say here you go, just give it up to the divine. Whoever you want, it's like brain dump give it up and then just get on with your day.

Michele Folan: 47:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's perfect, Joanne Kennedy where can the listeners find you?

Joanne Kennedy: 48:00

Yeah, so simply on my website, which is joannkennedynaturopathy. com. I've also got an Instagram page which is just joannkennedynaturopath, and I've also got YouTube channel with lots of videos on methylation and histamine. It's just joannkennedynaturopath, so just all my name naturopath.

Michele Folan: 48:13

Yeah, Got it Again. That will all go in the show notes. Joanne Kennedy, thank you so much for being a guest today.

Joanne Kennedy: 48:20

Thank you so much for having me, Michele. Thank you.

Michele Folan: 48:24

Hey, thanks for tuning in. Please rate and review the show where you listen to the podcast. And did you know that Asking for a Friend is available now to listen on YouTube? You can subscribe to the podcast there as well. Your support is appreciated and it helps others find the show. Thank you.